From the exhibition
Beadle's New York Dime Library, No. 192
· June 28, 1882
This issue of a pulp weekly from June 28, 1882, features "The Lightning Sport; or, The Bad Men at Slaughter Bar" by William R. Eyster. The serial begins with Harold Varley, a manipulative Englishman with steel-gray eyes, seducing the discontented Mrs. Clarice Bride through sympathy. He persuades her to flee her husband Clinton Bride, claiming western courts will grant her freedom and restore her fortune. Varley's actual target is a secret safe filled with gold hidden in Bride's cellar vault. Mrs. Bride locates the safe and arranges to send her young daughter away with a nurse via steamer. Varley and Bride meet the following night at the mansion to rob the safe. The narrative establishes Varley as a cunning villain exploiting a vain, weak woman, leading toward a crime of theft and abandonment.
Public domain (pre-1929), restored and presented by comicbooks.com public-domain