Dime novels sold by the millions from the mid-19th to the early 20th centuries. These tales of adventure and the American West, of life at war and at sea, of romance and rags-to-riches heroes, were available at newsstands, train stations, dry goods stores and by subscription, for 10 cents or even less. They and their newspaper-format cousin, known as story papers, were printed on cheap paper and never meant to last. At the time, libraries sniffed at them as mass entertainment and didn’t stock them. Some 60,000 titles were...

Source: Wall Street Journal May 29, 2020 18:45 UTC