The “Page-Turner Series” is a series of dime-novel reprints put out by Darren Németh under his Giant Squid Audio Lab Co. and first put out as a Kickstarter campaign, and later made available through Moving Pictures Reprint Series.
As I write this he is finishing up another Kickstarter campaign to put out two novelizations of early Lon Chaney movies.
While all his reprints are taken from original dime novels, each page is scanned at high resolution and edited to correct the page skew, fix damaged printing plates, and eliminate other press defects. This separates these reprints from those that just reprint straight from the original works, flaws and all, such that sometimes they look like a just a step above a photocopy. However, they aren’t like other reprints that resets the type via OCR or the like.
The Page-Turner Series numbers six so far. I have previously posted on the first four. The series consists of:
- The Great Express Robbery (1907), by Grace Miller Wright, which adapts a play of the time
- Four Dime Novels From The Old Sleuth (1896 & 1898), by Harlan Page Halsey under the alias of Old Sleuth
- The House of Mystery (1905), by Grace Miller Wright, another play adaptation
- Fritz to the Front (1881), by Edward L. Wheeler, a dime-novel detective story in its expanded edition
- The Complete Alvarez Bros. Dime Novel Collection (1898), a quintet by Harlan Page Halsey under the alias of Old Sleuth
- The Human Vampire and The Haunted Chamber (1889 and 188?), a pair of dime-novel horror tales
As noted before, dime novels was a catch-all phrase for a variety of publications from post Civil War until the early 20th century, when they were replaced by pulp magazines. They were the source of popular fiction of the time, periodicals of western, detective, and other heroes along with other stories put out in mass quantities by several publishers. And as they were basically periodicals, not books, would be reprinted often several times over the decades. And as they are periodicals, they were not created to last and many are now hard to find.
First up is #5 in the series, The Complete Alvarez Bros. Dime Novel Collection. This reprints a series of five stories that first appeared in the Old Sleuth’s Own dime-novel series in 1898. Old Sleuth was the first of the dime-novel detectives, and the first to use the term “sleuth” for a detective. He first appeared in The Fireside Companion story paper beginning in 1872, as by Old Sleuth, really Harlan Page Halsey who wrote all the Old Sleuth works until his death in 1898. In addition to stories about Old Sleuth, Halsey also wrote many other detective stories under that name. Old Sleuth’s Own series ran 1894-99 for 131 weekly or semi-monthly issues, all with other detectives.
This volume reprints five issues with the Alvarez Brothers, a pair of 17-year-old twin brothers Jack and Gil, who have learned various skills like acrobatics, disguise, and ventriloquism (here less misdirection as to have folks somehow “hear” the voice elsewhere). These are issues #104, #106, #108, #110, and #112. Each story stands alone, but there is plot arc that runs through them all.
In the first one, the two brothers help a girl accused of a crime, and expose the real guilt party. This sets them on the path of being detectives. The final story has them rescue a girl from being forced to marry a villain who was only after her money. Jack will actually marry her. I’m not sure why Gil was left out.
Next, #6 reprints a pair of horror dime novels, The Human Vampire and The Haunted Chamber. The first one, The Human Vampire; or, The Elixir of Life is by K.F. Hill, the pseudonym of Mrs Lucy A Baer. It was published in Log Cabin Library #31. The Log Cabin Library was the first dime-novel series published by Street & Smith and lasted over 400 issues until being renamed as The Old Log Cabin. This is apparently a scarce dime novel, so it’s great there is this edition.
This is like a lot of similar works were a man passes away and afterwards many horrible things are exposed.
The second work in the volume, which was a bonus from the Kickstarter campaign, is The Haunted Chamber. It’s an example of Victorian horror by The Duchess, the pseudonym of Margaret Wolfe Hamilton (1855?-97). As best I can tell, this work was reprinted in several dime-novel series over the years, as it was published in England and due to copyright laws at the time, was pretty much free for U.S. publishers to reprint it. This is your typical Victorian tale of a cousin planning to get rid of another in hopes of inheritance, but paying the price for it.
With all of these, there is a glossary added to help in understanding some of the words and phrases of these works.
Now, if you want to obtain copies, I recommend going over to the Moving Pictures Reprint Series website and purchase them. Better, would be to get on future Kickstarter campaigns as this will ensure future works come out, and you get some nice bonus items as well. Also look for the reprinting of the Ransom! series from 1933, a rare pulp epic put out in 110 parts originally, and being reprinted in a series of nine trade paperbacks. Two are out so far. Look for a review of this and other works here in the future.
