ABSTRACT
Charles Bragin, the dean of dime novel collectors during the 1930s and 1940s, issued a dime novel bibliography in 1938 in which he defined the term "dime novel" as paper-covered "lurid literature of the [American] west, detectives, bandits, etc." (p. 29). Other collectors have used the phrase "blood and thunder" to describe dime novels. This description distinguishes them from the inexpensive paper-covered editions of the works of such noted literary figures as Charles Dickens, Sir Walter Scott, James Fenimore Cooper, and even William Shakespeare-authors whose works can hardly be called dime novels. So, in addition to format, which in many cases was the same for both types of publication, the definition of dime novels must incorporate the type of story being published.
