Beadle and Adams (1872-1898)

The Beadle Dime Novels , together with numerous other publications issued by the firms Beadle and Co., Irwin P. Beadle and Co., and Beadle and Adams, were a tremendously successful foray in cheap literature for the mass public. Dime novels, like the story papers that had preceded them and the pulp magazines that would replace them in the twentieth century, delivered adventurous or sensational stories in inexpensive, paper-bound editions. Although the Beadle brothers, Erastus and Irwin, were not the first publishers to exploit this medium, they were the first to do so in a continuous, serial form. This innovation, combined with their large number of publications and sales, makes their firm an integral part of the history of the dime novel.

Erastus Flavel Beadle was born in Oswego County, New York, on September 9, 1821. His brother, Irwin Pedro Beadle, was born in 1826. They were the grandsons of Benjamin Beadle, a Revolutionary War solider. After a brief move to Michigan, the Beadles returned to New York, settling in Chataqua County. There, Erastus worked for a miller named Hayes, where he supposedly began his printing career when he cut wooden letters to label bags of grain. In 1838, he was apprenticed to H & E Phinny, a publishing firm in Cooperstown, New York, where he learned typesetting, stereotyping, binding, and some engraving. He married Mary Ann Pennington in 1846, and the next year the couple moved to Buffalo, where Erastus worked as a stereotyper. In 1849, Irwin followed his brother to Buffalo and found a job as a bookbinder. The next year, the brothers set up a stereotype foundry of their own, although Irwin would leave the company in 1856.

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