A complete, restored issue of Pulp Fiction from 1883 — 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 · 1883

Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 285

1883 · Free to read

Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 285 — page 2 of 16 — 2 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 285 — page 3 of 16 — 3 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 285 — page 4 of 16 — 4 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 285 — page 5 of 16 — 5 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 285 — page 6 of 16 — 6 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 285 — page 7 of 16 — 7 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 285 — page 8 of 16 — 8 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 285 — page 9 of 16 — 9 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 285 — page 10 of 16 — 10 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 285 — page 11 of 16 — 11 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 285 — page 12 of 16 — 12 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 285 — page 13 of 16 — 13 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 285 — page 14 of 16 — 14 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 285 — page 15 of 16 — 15 / 16

Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 285 — page 16 of 16 — 16 / 16

About this issue

This story, the third in the "Denver Doll" series by Edward L. Wheeler (author of the Deadwood Dick novels), features the outlaw Murdock Brothers—Burk and Jack—and their gang of stage robbers, murderers, and horse-thieves hiding in a remote Idaho mountain cabin. The narrative opens with a farcical interruption: a persistent book-agent named George Washington Gum arrives selling various publications and narrowly escapes execution before being concealed. Later, a mysterious Reverend Jubal Andre arrives with his beautiful daughter Agnes and a guide named Red Eagle, seeking to hire the outlaws for sinister purposes. Andre explains that his daughter was married as a child to the worthless Joseph Wilton; now that Wilton has completed his prison sentence for manslaughter, Andre wants him "disposed of"—both to protect himself and because Agnes cannot inherit or remarry while Wilton lives. Complicating matters, a child from their union survives, currently traveling with a detective called Big Buckskin, whom Murdock recognizes as a formidable enemy.

Browse this issue page by page

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