Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 289

About this issue

Jolly Jim's Job: or, The Young Detective's Triumph by Charles Morris. This is a detective serial published in Beadle and Adams's dime novel format (February 6, 1883). The narrative opens with Paul Wilkins, an unscrupulous merchant, hiring Jolly Jim—a streetwise teenage detective's apprentice—to find his three-year-old daughter, who was stolen from his Staten Island country house by his estranged brother-in-law, Gilbert Bacon, as revenge. Wilkins had separated from the child's mother (now institutionalized) and retained custody. Jim accepts the case, initially posing as a ragged street boy helping a servant girl at Bacon's house, where he learns Bacon is indeed the suspect. He gains the servant Mary's confidence by assisting with her pavement-washing chores and secures entry to the household kitchen. Jim's approach relies on cunning observation rather than direct confrontation, as the case requires careful tracking rather than legal force.