Between the Covers

Softcover. Magazines. Octavos. Various page counts but typically between 4pp.-12pp. Illustrated self-wrappers. Overall near fine with some light wear and age-toning; a few scattered notations and moderate wear at the edges. A collection of more than 200 issues of *Dime Novel Round Up*, with a nearly unbroken run of 177 published between 1936 and 1952 and another scattered run of 35 issued published between 1953 and 1971. *Dime Novel Round Up* served as the successor to the *Happy Hour Newsletter* created by the Happy Hours Brotherhood, an early group of dime novel collectors that formed in 1924. Whereas the previous newsletter was largely a way for collectors to buy and sell issues, *Dime Novel Round Up* became a resource for collectors with articles about various publications, their content, and the creators behind them. Ralph Cummings served as the editor until 1951 when Edward LeBlanc took over with a focus on helping to standardize the publication's knowledge by organizing information, such as publishers, publishing dates, content, contributors, etc. The evolution is evident with early issues featuring small articles and letters with little to no overarching themes, while later issues focus almost entirely on an individual title, character or creator, or lengthy collector indexes. Accompanying this a run of 57 official reprints of the early issues published between 1931 and 1938, as well as about a dozen related volumes of indexes, publications, and dime novel sales lists. An interesting collection showing the early efforts to research and organize this popular "disposable" form of entertainment.

Item #447735