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This chapter examines the tradition of periodical adventure stories that existed in Britain during the period 1825–1935, focusing on “story papers” and “penny bloods,” also known as “penny dreadfuls.” It first provides a historical background on the emergence of British comics before discussing “story papers” and “penny dreadfuls,” and especially their relationship with similar publications in America and the characters who, in retrospect, can be seen as protosuperheroes and villains. It also shows how these publications established the market and audience for adventure comics in Britain and influenced the rise of a similar market in America, where dime novels and pulp magazines, along with newspaper strips, would later influence the rise of superhero comics. The chapter concludes with an analysis of three of the early treatments of the superhuman from science-fiction literature: Edward Bulwer-Lytton's The Coming Race (1871), Philip Wylie's The Gladiator (1930), and Olaf Stapledon's Odd John (1935).

This chapter focuses on the history of story papers in the United States and their critical reception, with particular emphasis on their significance for working women and the latter’s place as characters within this literature. Citing Louisa May Alcott’s work of fiction Little Women, it considers the moral aspects of ‘bad books’ and the danger they posed to young women. It also examines the professional opportunities that story papers afforded women writers such as Alcott and Laura Jean Libbey, along with the importance of story papers for working-class female readers. The chapter concludes by discussing story papers within the contexts of social subjectivity and modern urban life.

This chapter focuses on the cheap sensational fiction written by authors such as George Lippard, Ned Buntline, and A. J. H. Duganne for story-papers in the late nineteenth century. More specifically, it examines the role played by Beadle and Company in popularizing cheap sensational literature during the period by publishing dime novels. The chapter cites some examples of dime novels of the period, including Lippard’s The Quaker City; or, The Monks of Monk Hall (1844–1845), E. D. E. N. Southworth’s The Hidden Hand; or, Capitola the Madcap (1859), Edward Wheeler’s Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road; or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills (1877), and Edward Ellis’s Seth Jones; or, The Captives of the Frontier (1860). It also considers mass-circulation story-papers such as the Flag of Our Union, the Star Spangled Banner, and Robert Bonner’s New York Ledger.

This chapter focuses on the publication of American novels as serial fiction in magazines, newspapers, and story-papers from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries. After providing a background on the history of serial novels, the chapter looks at examples of canonical novels that began as serials in periodicals, including Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady, William Dean Howells's A Modern Instance, Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson, and Sarah Orne Jewett's Country of Pointed Firs. It then examines how the serial novel was shaped by its serialization both in terms of its production and its reception. Finally, it considers the reasons for the decline of the serial novel.

This chapter examines the participation of the working class in various genres and forms of popular print culture in the United States in the period spanning the Civil War and the early twentieth century. More specifically, it considers how labour was represented in commercial media, how these narratives were used by working people, and how the working class produced more direct self-expression in the labour and immigrant press. The chapter first looks at the popularity of story papers and dime novels among working-class readers after the Civil War before turning to the weekly National Police Gazette and its readership. It then discusses the production of print material for religious publications, along with the journalism, activism, and readership of labour and immigrant presses. The chapter also describes the the sites of working-class reading before concluding with an assessment of workers as writers and subjects of popular print culture.