critics, went so far as to claim that the reading of penny dreadfuls could lead to
madness. In an article published in the Fortnightly Review, Salmon wrote, ‘Some time
ago, a youth was so maddened by reading one of the tales provided for his
entertainment that he shot dead his father and brother’ (Salmon 1886:255–256).
The opponents of penny dreadfuls often called for governmental suppression of them,
and the police responded to this pressure on several occasions. In 1871 they forced the
Newsagents’ Publishing Office, one of the most prominent publishers of penny
dreadfuls, to close its offices, albeit temporarily. A few years later, the police raided about
a dozen news stands and seized the copies of the Wild Boys of London. In both of these
cases, the police justified their actions by arguing that the publishers and retailers of
penny dreadfuls could be prosecuted under Lord Campbell’s Obscene Publications Act
of 1857. This argument, however, did not hold up in court. Frustrated by their inability
to eradicate the booklets, some critics launched a campaign in 1879 to enact legislation
that would lead to the banning of them, but this effort never progressed much beyond
the planning stages (Dunae 1979:145). The controversy surrounding penny dreadfuls
gradually subsided during the 1880s.
At the same time that the British were coming to accept penny dreadfuls, some
Americans were sounding alarms about dime novels. The leader of the movement to
suppress them was Anthony Comstock, the founder of the New York Society for the
Suppression of Vice. Like his British counterparts, Comstock argued that this type of
sensationalistic children’s literature could cause children to become criminals.
Comstock, however, added a religious element to his argument. In his book Traps for the
Young (1883), he maintained that dime novels were traps that the agents of Satan
created in order to corrupt children.
Comstock urged his supporters to work for the passage of laws that would prohibit or
restrict their publication and distribution. Such legislation was enacted in several
states, including California, Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, South Carolina,
Tennessee, and Washington (Pivar 1973:184). Although Comstock felt that passing such
laws was the most desirable way to eliminate dime novels, he argued for the
implementation of other methods of combating this ‘evil’ as well. He instructed parents
to confiscate and burn all such books that their children brought home. He also
suggested that parents apply economic pressure against businesses that sold them. ‘The
remedy lies in your hands,’ he told his readers, ‘by not patronising any person who
offers these death-traps for sale... Let your newsdealer feel that, just in proportion as he
prunes his stock of that which is vicious, your interest in his welfare increases and your
patronage becomes more constant’ (Comstock 1883:42).
During the first decades of the twentieth century, penny dreadfuls and dime novels
gradually evolved into what became known as series books. Although series books cost
more than their predecessors, they were still within the financial reach of many
youngsters, and they were frequently sold directly to children. Most of the series books
published in Great Britain were militaristic adventure stories in which young heroes
battle the enemies of the British Empire. These books generated little controversy, but
the same could not be said of their American counterparts. Edward Stratemeyer, the
leading author of series books in the United States, created numerous series, including
the Rover Boys, the Bobbsey Twins, the Hardy Boys, and Nancy Drew. For the most
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