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The Voice of the Fiction Factory in Dime and Pulp Westerns
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 January 2009
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Dime and pulp writers were always hacks, in Walter Benjamin's terms, because, from the beginning of the dime novel in 1860 to the end of the pulp magazine around 1950, they consistently subscribed to the conditions of labour in the ‘fiction factories’. These writers came into being when mass literature began in the United States. Their main product was Western fiction, since enthusiasm for the West coincided with the technological innovations which made these forms of commercial publishing possible. Hacks were hired by dime novel and, later, pulp magazine firms to churn out formulaic Westerns to their employers' stipulations. This they did without protest: in interviews and biographies, hack writers talk of the advantages of regimented production and they emphasize the financial rewards. One Beadle and Adams author says, ‘The only men, as a class, in America today, who are able to live by pure literary labor, are the writers of what you call ‘dime novels’, that is to say, of books written for the largest possible market in this country.’ In their fiction, they invariably complied with publishers' directives, writing popular imitations of James Fenimore Cooperand Robert Montgomery Bird.
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- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983
References
Christine Bold is currently a graduate student in the Department of English, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT. She was aided in the preparation of this study by a grant from the University of London Central Research Fund.
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2 Capt. Whittaker, Frederick, Dime Novels: A Defense by a Writer of Them (1884; rept. Philadelphia: Chas. H. Austin, 1938)Google Scholar, n.p. Beadle and Adams paid $75–$150 for a novel of about 35,000 words, $150–$300 for one about 70,000 words long. See Johannsen, Albert, The House of Beadle and Adams and Its Dime and Nickel Novels (Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma, 1950)Google Scholar, 1, 5 and 8. The rate dropped early in the twentieth century, when dime publishing neared the end of its life. William Wallace Cook records that in 1910 Street and Smith paid him $60 per nickel novel; by dint of great output he could still live on this. See Edwards, John Milton, The Fiction Factory: “Being the Experience of a Writer who, for Twenty-two Years, has kept a Story-mill Grinding Successfully…” (Ridgewood, N.Y.: The Editor Co., 1912), p. 118Google Scholar. With the pulp magazines, rates picked up again, to an average of 1¢ per word. However, stories shortened considerably (they were usually 5,000 words long, though a ‘lead novel’ could be 25,000 words). Nevertheless, in Thirties America, pulp writing was still considered lucrative employment. See Gruber, Frank, The Pulp Jungle (California: Sherbourne Press, 1967), pp. 23 and 73Google Scholar.
3 This is a very simplified history. The main sources of information are Johannsen, The House of Beadle and Adams; Reynolds, Quentin, The Fiction Factory: or, From Pulp Row To Quality Street (N.Y.: Random House, 1955)Google Scholar; and various articles in Reckless Ralph's Dime Novel Round-Up.
4 Johannsen, 1, 31.
5 Reynolds, pp. 88–89, records one illustration of detailed editorial interference in a letter from Ormond Smith to William G. Patten, who had been chosen to write a new series, Tip Top Weekly. Ormond instructs the author on the nationalities of peripheral characters, the hero's age and education, his movements, financial status and companions, his romantic involvement, and the scenes of his foreign travels. He tells Patten how many issues should be devoted to each setting. By the end of the letter, Smith is using an editorial ‘we’ (‘we would bring the hero back… we could take him on his travels’) which leaves to Patten only the invention of ‘the catchy name’ Smith requested for ‘our hero’ –the famous Frank Merriwell. John Milton Edwards's The Fiction Factory is a biography of William Wallace Cook, a writer in the Street and Smith stable. It tells of Cook being moved from one series to another at short notice and being instructed to adapt other writers' novels.
6 See Gruber, p. 137. Henry Steeger, who began Popular Publications in 1930, affirmed in an interview in June 1981 that, in the Western field, stories would be subject to copy-editing, but there existed no dictation or collaboration, such as prevailed in Street and Smith at the time of the dime novel. Alden Norton, editor of Popular's Western magazines, made the same point in a letter to the author, September 1981.
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33 Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road; or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills, The Deadwood Dick Library, 1, No. 1 (1877; rept. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1899), 6Google Scholar.
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46 It is impossible to ascertain the authenticity of all the readers' letters. Certainly, Street & Smith did not concoct them all: the authors of some letters in another Street & Smith series have been identified in Guinon, J. P., ‘The Applause Column in Tip Top Weekly’, Dime Novel Round-Up, 28, No. 1 (15 01 1960), 2–5Google Scholar. There are many letters which give opinions on the contents of Rough Rider, all of them identified with a reader's name, a town and a state. Quite a few elicit clear responses in terms of changes in the story. Whether or not these specific letters were authentic, the important point is that the publishers felt they had to be seen to be ordering their authors to follow the dictates of their readers.
47 King of the Wild West Underground; or, Stella To the Rescue, Rough Rider Weekly, No. 106 (N.Y.: Street & Smith, 1906), p. 17Google Scholar.
48 King of the Wild West's Buckskin Guide; or, Stella At The Grand Round-Up, Rough Rider Weekly, No. 125 (N.Y.: Street & Smith, 1906), p. 10Google Scholar.
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50 Rough Rider Weekly, No. 132 (N.Y.: Street & Smith, 1906), p. 29.
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52 ‘A Chat With You’, The Popular Magazine, 2, No. 10 (02 1905), n.pGoogle Scholar.
53 ‘The Wranglers' Corner’, Wild West Weekly, 26, No. 1 (13 08 1927), 95Google Scholar.
54 Some pulps, like Western Story Magazine, did promote certain writers, like Max Brand, as stars of the pulp magazines. However, these cases were rare and they concerned authors for whom pulp publication was only the preliminary to book publication, not the sole market for their writing.
55 ‘Notice’, Far West, 1, No. 7 (09 1978), n.pGoogle Scholar.