A complete, restored issue of Pulp Fiction from 1897 — all 16 pages of painted-cover fiction magazines that launched science fiction, horror, and hardboiled crime, free to page through at ComicBooks.com.

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A complete issue · 16 pages · 1897

The Half Dime Library No. 1037

1897 · Free to read

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About this issue

This issue features "Dick Doom, the Artist Detective" and serializes "The High-Handed Game: A Story of the Mystery of Surf Spray Hall" by Col. Prentiss Ingraham. The story concerns the imposing Surf Spray Hall mansion on New Jersey's coast, where aged Colonel Huntington, estranged from his exiled son after a fatal duel abroad, dies. His will grants the estate to his nephew Hugh Huntington for three years unless the son returns. Hugh manages the property prudently, increasing its value substantially. On the deadline's final hour, a shabby vagrant appears—claiming to be the missing heir. The narrative meanwhile develops a parallel storyline involving Myrtle Marsden, who is rescued from drowning by a youth named Bert Manning, then saved again from a runaway horse by Hazel Huntington (the exiled son), establishing romantic tension. The text promises that a detective's investigation will expose a "terrible tragedy and most daring imposture."

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