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This collection contains dime novels from the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries. These were cheap, mass-market fiction works sold in five, ten, and twenty cent formats that covered themes of adventure, crime, technology, the American Revolution, pirates, frontier life, the Wild West, and relations with Native Americans. This collection contains issues from popular dime novel publishers, including Frank Tousey, the Winner Library Co., Street and Smith, the George Marsh Company, Beadle and Adams, Norman L. Munro, the Arthur Westbrook Company, and R. M. de Witt. Because of their ephemeral nature, many dime novel publications have not survived. This collection offers a valuable look at American popular fiction from the turn of the twentieth century.

The collection consists of Dr. Dizer's correspondence and research files relating to nineteenth- and twentieth-century American popular children's literature, with particular emphasis on series books, story papers, and dime novels.  Notable are extensive files dealing with Edward Stratemeyer, the Stratemeyer Syndicate, and the Boy Scouts of America.