Beadle's Dime Library No. 111

This issue of Beadle & Adams' dime novel series features "The Smuggler Captain; or, The Skipper's Crime" by Ned Buntline, a serialized adventure story set in a New England coastal village. The narrative opens on a headland near Ledgetown, Maine, where elderly merchant Thomas Drummond operates a shipping business alongside a general store. His son Ethelbert has recently graduated from Yale College and returned home physically weakened from study; his sister Rosalette expresses reluctant acceptance of his future departure into the world. The exposition establishes the village setting, introducing secondary characters including the tavern keeper Nehemiah Hunt, a rotund postmaster and gossipy "news-agent," and his servant Steve Tompkins. Early tension emerges around Captain Frank Clewlef, commander of Drummond's vessel the "Scud," whom Ethelbert distrusts despite his father's confidence in his reliability and profitable voyages. The story promises maritime intrigue involving smuggling operations.