Reading the West: An Anthology of Dime Westerns(Bedford Cultural Editions)

This exciting collection makes 4 previously hard-to-find dime Westerns easily available to readers who wish to enrich their understanding of nineteenth-century American literature. These varied novels provide a new and important context for examining classic, widely taught authors and tell us much about nineteenth-century attitudes towards race and gender. The anthology includes: Malaeska; The Indian Wife of the White Hunter, by Ann S. Stephens (1860) Seth Jones; or The Captives of the Frontier, by Edward S. Ellis (1860) Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road, by Edward J. Wheeler (1877) Frank Reade, The Inventor, Chasing the James Boys With His Steam Team, Anonymous (1890) With an introduction that critically examines the historical and cultural background of the dime Western, a chronology of relevant background information on historical figures and events, headnotes to the novels, glosses of unfamiliar terms and references, 27 illustrations, and a selected bibliography, this edition makes frequently overlooked dime Westerns readily accessible for serious study, particularly in courses that emphasize a new historicist or cultural studies approach.