Erastus Flavel Beadle

Erastus Flavel Beadle (September 9, 1821 – December 18, 1894) was an American printer and pioneer in publishing pulp fiction.

Erastus Flavel Beadle (1821-1894)
Front cover of Malaeska, 1860

Biography

Erastus was born in Otsego County, New York, United States, in 1821, and had a brother, Irwin Pedro Beadle (1826-1882), who assisted him in various business undertakings. They were the grandsons of Benjamin Beadle, a Revolutionary War soldier. After a hiatus in Michigan, the Beadle family removed to New York, and lived in Chautauqua County, New York. Erastus worked for a miller named Hayes, where he began his printing career when cutting wooden letters to label bags of grain. In 1838, he was apprenticed to H. & E. Phinney, a publishing firm in Cooperstown, New York. There he learned typesetting, stereotyping, binding, and engraving. He married Mary Ann Pennington (d.1889) in 1846,[1] and in 1847 the couple moved to Buffalo, New York, where Erastus worked as a stereotyper. In 1849 Irwin went to Buffalo too, and found a job as a bookbinder.

The next year, in 1850, the Beadle brothers set up their own stereotype foundry.[2] Irwin left the company in 1856 and went to the Nebraska Territory where he acted as a secretary for a company settling the town of Saratoga. The town was busted in 1857, and Beadle returned to New York shortly thereafter.[3]

Books for the millions

In 1860, after finally settling down in Brooklyn, Irwin came with an idea to publish, first, ten-cent booklets, and then, a series of paper-covered novels at the same price, which brought him recognition and commercial success. On June 7, 1860, the New-York Tribune advertised the first book in the dime novel series, Indian Wife of the White Hunter written by Ann S. Stephens by printing the following, "Books for the Millions! A dollar book for the dime. 128 pages complete, only Ten Cents!!! Beadle's dime novels No. 1 Maleska."[4]

Many established as well as aspiring writers took part in the project geared towards the masses, including William Jared Hall, Frances Fuller Victor, John Neal, Mayne Reid, A. J. H. Duganne, Edward S. Ellis, William Reynolds Eyster, William W. Busteed, James L. Bowen, Mary A. Denison, Charles Dunning Clark, among others. Orville James Victor served for nearly thirty years as the series' editor.[3]

Later life

Erastus retired to Cooperstown, New York, in 1889, where he died on December 18, 1894.[5]

Recognition
Dime novel publishing team, Erastus Beadle, David Adams, and (possibly) Irwin Beadle

At first, dime novels were denounced as "pernicious and evil" by literary purists.[3] At the beginning of the twentieth century, in July 1907, Charles M. Harvey, a critic, changed the prevailing attitudes after publishing in the Atlantic Monthly a reflective piece titled, The Dime Novel in American Life. He stated there,

These tales incited a love of reading among the youth of the country.... Many of the boys and girls who encountered Pontiac, Boone, the renegade Girty, Mad Anthony, Kenton, and Black Hawk in their pages were incited to find out something more about those characters and their times, and thus were introduced to much of the nation’s story and geography. Manliness and womanliness among the readers were cultivated by these little books, not by homilies, but by example. It can be truthfully said that the taste and tone of the life of the generation which grew up with these tales were improved by them. No age limit was set up among Beadle’s readers. Lincoln was one of them.[6]

In the middle of the same century, Erastus F. Beadle was posthumously recognized as a Dime Novel King.[7] His papers are archived at the University of Delaware.

References
  1. The New York Times; February 29, 1884, Wednesday; A singular case of domestic misery was brought up for settlement in Judge Massey's court, Brooklyn, yesterday. The wife of Irwin F. Beadle, a son of Erastus Beadle, the dime novel publisher, sues him for abandonment. The couple were married about nine years ago, ... .
  2. Irwin and Erastus Beadle, Innovators in Publishing Popular Literature, Tavistock Books
  3. The Beadle Collection of Dime Novels. Given to the New York Public Library By Dr. Frank P. O'Brien, New York Public Library Bulletin, May-June, 1922
  4. Johannsen, Albert. The House of Beadle and Adams and its Dime and Nickel Novels: The Story of a Vanished Literature. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1950.
  5. The New York Times; December 20, 1894, Wednesday; Erastus Flavius Beadle. Erastus Flavius Beadle, the senior member of the publishing house of Beadle Adams, died at his home in Cooperstown, New York, Tuesday night. Mr. Beadle was born in Otsego County in 1821.
  6. Charles Harvey. The Dime Novel in American Life, The Atlantic Monthly, vol. 100, 1907.
  7. Lutes, Della T. Erastus F. Beadle: Dime Novel King, New York History, vol. 22, no. 2, 1941, pp. 147–157. JSTOR 23134662

Further reading
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