A complete, restored issue of Pulp Fiction from 1878 — all 28 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 · 28 pages · 1878

Beadle's Dime Library No. 27

1878 · Free to read

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About this issue

The Spotter-Detective: The Girls of New York, a serialized story by Albert W. Aiken, opens with the escape from Sing-Sing prison. John Blaine, imprisoned for assault (charged with intent to kill, though stated to be innocent), orchestrates an elaborate Sunday afternoon escape assisted by Jimmy Kent, the water-carrier. Blaine's crime involved self-defense against a mysterious long-pursued enemy during a midnight Broadway encounter. The escape employs resourceful sabotage: filing iron bars, tampering with gas lines and dark-lanterns, and cutting bell-ropes to delay alarm. News of the breakout reaches New York Monday evening, triggering emotional responses from multiple women connected to Blaine—a yellow-haired beauty on Madison Avenue, an olive-complexioned woman at a fashionable hotel, and a dark-eyed seamstress on Fourteenth Street. Each reacts with apparent recognition and distress upon learning of Blaine's freedom, suggesting interconnected relationships and future plot complications.

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