Beadle's Dime Library No. 708

# Catalog Note

Beadle and Adams issue containing Albert W. Aiken's serial "The Woman Hawkshaw: A City Revelation." The narrative opens on Broadway at midnight as wealthy young men Jack Roosevelt and Johnny Rhinelander visit Peter Wheekly's underground gambling establishment on West 35th Street. The operation, disguised as a respectable brownstone mansion, features elaborate furnishings, fine food and wine, and gaming tables including faro. The pair observe the proprietor—a gray-bearded man resembling a clergyman—and encounter Godfrey Roylance, a gentleman of old New Jersey lineage now financially troubled. Roylance has reportedly lost substantial sums gambling here, allegedly influenced by Baron de Gramm, a newly-arrived Prussian nobleman whom Roosevelt suspects is manipulative. The narrative explores the contrast between respectable society facades and the corruption lurking beneath New York's fashionable world.