Pioneers, Passionate Ladies, and Private Eyes - 9781138978485

Taylor & Francis

Pioneers, Passionate Ladies, and Private Eyes illuminates the significance of dime novels, series books, and paperbacks by exploring their historical backgrounds and analyzing their texts. Popular heroes and mysterious heroines abound as they are subjected to the scholar's eye and explored as literary artifact, symbol, and myth. The result is a one-of-a-kind study of the evolutionary development and importance of these three forms of popular culture. > \nDespite efforts of contemporary reformers to curb the availability of dime novels, series books, and paperbacks, Pioneers, Passionate Ladies, and Private Eyes reveals how many readers used them as means of resistance and how fictional characters became models for self-empowerment. These literary genres, whose value has long been underestimated, provide fascinating insight into the formation of American popular culture and identity. Through these mass-produced, widely read books, Deadwood Dick, Old Sleuth, and Jessie James became pn