Erastus F. BeadleDavid AdamsIrwin Beadle (?)
THE FIRM OF BEADLE AND ADAMS, 1862
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THE
Beadle Collection
of
Dime Novels
Given to
The New York Public Library
By
Dr. Frank P. O’Brien
New York
1922
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REPRINTED JULY 1922
FROM THE
BULLETIN OF THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
OF JULY 1922
PRINTED AT THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
form p166 [vii-20-22 5c]
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THE BEADLE COLLECTION
Through the generosity of Dr. Frank P. O’Brien of New York, whohas given this collection to the Library, it is possible to place on exhibitionabout fourteen hundred of those rare little books and magazines which,beginning about the year 1859, were issued in America under the broad and generaltitle of “Dime Novels.” These are separate publications from the houseof Beadle and Adams, of which Erastus Beadle, the Otsego printer, was theoriginator and guiding spirit. The remaining 171 items in Dr. O’Brien’s giftare examples of those other novels which sprang into existence as a result ofthe popularity with which the Beadle books were greeted from their first appearance.For lack of space, they are not in the exhibition. The collection, asshown in the Main Exhibition Room, constitutes an absorbingly interestingassemblage of a pioneer literature which has now wholly vanished, but which,for a generation, exercised a profound influence on the country’s thought,character, and habits of mind.
No less than thirty-one various “types” or “series” of books, pamphlets,magazines, and periodicals are embraced in the Beadle exhibit. Of certaintypes which were published but for a short time only, or which have becomemost difficult to discover, only a few copies are shown. Other varieties, whoseregular appearance extended over a considerable period of years, are in somefew instances represented by hundreds of different titles. The publicationsare of all sizes, from little 24mos to large folio sheets as big as a modern newspaper.More than half of the different series were originally issued in illustratedcovers or wrappers of different colors, and they are thus shown. Theycome in brown, blue, orange, tan, green, yellow, red, buff and in various combinationsof those hues, and in plain black-and-white. Nearly all are shown inthe exhibition cases in a manner to reveal their outward appearance and thedramatic or quaint illustrations with which they were embellished, but certainof the books of each variety are opened for a proper display of the title-pages.
Although every one of the thirty-one types of Beadle books (and doubtlessmany of the