A romance of the lurid kind.
1879. The boy who reads dime novels wants to be a pirate.—Henry George, ‘Progress and Poverty,’ p. 443. (N.E.D.)
1888. The story of this crime is a strange one, and smacks somewhat of the dime novel.—Missouri Republican, Feb. 24 (Farmer).
1888. The hazers in college are the men who have been bred upon dime novels and the prize-ring—in spirit at least, if not in fact—to whom the training and instincts of the gentleman are unknown.—George W. Curtis in Harper’s Monthly, lxxvi. 636/1 (March).
1890. There was enough desperate history in the little town [of Hays City, Kansas] in that one summer to make a whole library of dime novels.—Mrs. Custer, ‘Following the Guidon,’ p. 154 (N.Y.).
