A complete, restored issue of Pulp Fiction from 1881 — all 16 pages of painted-cover fiction magazines that launched science fiction, horror, and hardboiled crime, free to page through at ComicBooks.com.

Home › Exhibition › Pulp Fiction › Read

A complete issue · 16 pages · 1881

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 198

1881 · Free to read

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 198 — page 2 of 16 — 2 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 198 — page 3 of 16 — 3 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 198 — page 4 of 16 — 4 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 198 — page 5 of 16 — 5 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 198 — page 6 of 16 — 6 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 198 — page 7 of 16 — 7 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 198 — page 8 of 16 — 8 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 198 — page 9 of 16 — 9 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 198 — page 10 of 16 — 10 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 198 — page 11 of 16 — 11 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 198 — page 12 of 16 — 12 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 198 — page 13 of 16 — 13 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 198 — page 14 of 16 — 14 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 198 — page 15 of 16 — 15 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 198 — page 16 of 16 — 16 / 16

About this issue

This issue of Beadle and Adams' weekly (Vol. VIII, No. 198, May 10, 1881) contains "Arkansaw, the Man with the Knife; or, The Queen of Fate's Revenge," a mining-country adventure by T.C. Harbaugh. Set in the San Juan silver region, the serial depicts Gold Conrad, the wealthy owner of secret mines at Vulture Bar, who sends his Apache servant Catana with a warning message to Colonel Thunder after spotting a mysterious knife-thrower who pins a woodpecker to his gate-post. A large, bearded desperado calling himself "the Rosebud of the Pink Forks" arrives unbidden at Conrad's window and offers to kill the knife-thrower—or Conrad himself—forcing Conrad to choose. The narrative follows Conrad's subsequent attempts to reach Thunder, his rebuff by a young man named Halleck, and shifts to Vulture Bar, where six of Conrad's watchdogs supervise the silver mining operations and watch over the miners gambling nearby.

Browse this issue page by page

Each page has its own page — the cartoon, who’s in it, and what the satire means.