A Klondike Claim


Book Description

"A Klondike Claim" is an early American "dime novel" published in 1897 by Street & Smith Publishers of New York. It introduces athletic, clever, handsome Harvey Stokes, a college grad who was more interested in athletics than scholarship and is now traveling the world. He seems to have an aptitude for detective work and this is put to the test with three different cases in the one story. The book is set against a backdrop of Alaska (or at least what a writer in New York thought would pass for Alaska) during the height of the Klondike gold rush.




The Dime Novel Detective


Book Description

Provides reprints of the texts of 5 detective dime novels, and lists of all the titles in the series published by the five publishers.







Klondike


Book Description

With the building of the railroad and the settlement of the plains, the North West was opening up. The Klondike stampede was a wild interlude in the epic story of western development, and here are its dramatic tales of hardship, heroism, and villainy. We meet Soapy Smith, dictator of Skagway; Swiftwater Bill Gates, who bathed in champagne; Silent Sam Bonnifield, who lost and won back a hotel in a poker game; and Roddy Connors, who danced away a fortune at a dollar a dance. We meet dance-hall queens, paupers turned millionaires, missionaries and entrepreneurs, and legendary Mounties such as Sam Steele, the Lion of the Yukon. Pierre Berton's riveting account reveals to us the spectacle of the Chilkoot Pass, and the terrors of lesser-known trails through the swamps of British Columbia, across the glaciers of souther Alaska, and up the icy streams of the Mackenzie Mountains. It contrasts the lawless frontier life on the American side of the border to the relative safety of Dawson City. Winner of the Governor General's award for non-fiction, Klondike is authentic history and grand entertainment, and a must-read for anyone interested in the Canadian frontier.




Pioneers, Passionate Ladies, and Private Eyes


Book Description

Despite efforts of contemporary reformers to curb the availability of dime novels, series books, and paperbacks, Pioneers, Passionate Ladies, and Private Eyes reveals how many readers used them as means of resistance and how fictional characters became models for self-empowerment. These literary genres, whose value has long been underestimated, provide fascinating insight into the formation of American popular culture and identity. Through these mass-produced, widely read books, Deadwood Dick, Old Sleuth, and Jessie James became popular heroes that fed the public’s imagination for the last western frontier, detective tales, and the myth of the outlaw. Women, particularly those who were poor and endured hard lives, used the literature as means of escape from the social, economic, and cultural suppression they experienced in the nineteenth century. In addition to the insight this book provides into texts such as “The Bride of the Tomb,” the Nick Carter Series, and Edward Stratemeyer’s rendition of the Lizzie Borden case, readers will find interesting information about: the roles of illustrations and covers in consumer culture Bowling Green’s endeavor to digitize paperback and pulp magazine covers bibliographical problems in collecting and controlling series books the effects of mass market fiction on young girls Louisa May Alcott’s pseudonym and authorship of three dime novels special collections competition among publishers A collection of work presented at a symposium held by the Library of Congress, Pioneers, Passionate Ladies, and Private Eyes makes an outstanding contribution to redefining the role of popular fiction in American life.







Beyond Pursuit


Book Description




The Klondike Fever: The Life And Death Of The Last Great Gold Rush


Book Description

“Absolutely first-rate.”—The New Yorker This thrilling story is at once first-rate history and first-rate entertainment. Incredible events occurred in North America after a decrepit steamboat docked at Seattle in 1897 containing two tons of pure gold. So frenzied was the clash for gold and so scant was information about conditions in the Klondike that the rush for riches became a kind of fabulous madness. The entire tale—of which Pierre Berton’s account is the definitive telling—has an epic ring (legends were lived and fortunes were won) as much because of its splendid folly as because of its color and motion. “The definitive account of an affair as wildly improbable as any in North American history.”—Saturday Review “A lively saga of the great gold rush. It is the most complete and most authentic on the subject in English.”—The New York Times Book Review




Critical Survey of Mystery and Detective Fiction


Book Description

Presents critical studies of more than 290 authors of detective and mystery fiction from around the world dating from the mid-eighteenth century to the present day.