Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 468

About this issue

This 1886 Beadle and Adams serial issue contains "Pirate in Spite of Himself," an adventure story following a fifteen-year-old fisher boy living near the Kennebec River in Maine. The protagonist, skilled in seamanship and marksmanship, rescues a dying man from a life-boat during a violent storm, executing a dangerous towing maneuver through treacherous waters and rocky passages to save both himself and the stranger. The narrative then shifts backward several weeks to a mysterious scene in which an otherworldly old woman—dressed in blood-red gown, beads, and human teeth—helms a stolen English yacht toward an American brig bound for Boston. She transfers two young passengers (a man and woman) to the vessel for a substantial payment, returning alone to England. The OCR quality degrades considerably in the final chapters, though the setup suggests the fisher boy's rescue initiates a larger plot involving the mysterious trio.