The Great Unknown
No one knows his name. Not one piece of his original art appears to exist. If you discount the fact that the magazines he worked for were reprinted until the early 1920s, none of his art has ever been reprinted outside some scattered fan magazines and websites. Yet from roughly the summer of 1901 to the winter of 1910(and possibly beyond), he produced well over 3,000 covers for some of the most popular juvenile periodicals of his day, the equivalents of the modern comic book. These were weekly publications, and at times there were as many as nine different titles running concurrently, never less than seven. The covers all featured multiple figures in action, portraying a staggering variety of subject matter. If his draftsmanship isnΓÇÖt world class, if his research is a little shaky, his accomplishment is still tremendously impressive. And history has shafted him, big time.
Dime novels started before the American Civil War. By the late 1890s, they had gone through several permutations.(For the full history of dime novels, you can check out the article I wrote for Wikipedia here.) By the 1890s, they had transformed into weekly publications, with black and white covers, usually still priced at ten cents,and aimed at a younger audience. Detective stories and westerns dominated the field. Frank Tousey, the main rival to Street & Smith, introduced an innovation by adding color covers in the late 1890s and dropping the price to five cents. (Confusingly, these weekly publications are still usually referred to as dime novels.)
Frank Tousey died in 1902, and his son-in-law, Harry Wolff, took over the business. New stories continued to as late as 1915, and then Wolff reprinted the best selling titles (Fame & Fortune, Pluck and Luck, Secret Service, Wild West Weekly, Liberty Boys of ΓÇÿ76 and Work & Win) until he sold out to Street & Smith in 1922.
If thereΓÇÖs any record of the artistΓÇÖs name, then it would likely be in the papers of the Tousey corporation. However, Randy Cox, editor of the Dime Novel Round-up, says he knows of no Tousey papers, and he, as well as others, have been researching this field for decades. I canΓÇÖt believe a firm as large and prosperous as Tousey didnΓÇÖt leave a footprint, but my feeble efforts to locate such records have been no more successful than the others. IΓÇÖm wondering if they might not be buried in the Street & Smith repository at Syracuse University. Until someone has the will and time to dig into those dusty boxes, itΓÇÖs unlikely weΓÇÖll ever get a name for any of the artists –Mr. Unknown was preceded and followed by lesser lights –and this blog entry will have to stand as his testament.
And, yes, IΓÇÖve poured over as many covers as have come my way, well over 800, in search of any slight mark that might be construed as an initial. Nada. Zip. Hard to believe that artistΓÇÖs egos were any smaller then than now, but if this guy ever worked his name into an illustration against company policy, IΓÇÖve yet to find it.
Of particular interest toi the horror fan are some of the covers for Secret Service, mixed in with those below, that illustrate mad doctors, hidden tombs, secret societies and supernatural shenanigans. And a fair number of gorillas.
ThatΓÇÖs the sum total of what I know, except for the fact that I love these covers. I hope youΓÇÖll enjoy them as well. Click on the icons for a larger pic of each cover.
March 2nd, 2009 at 9:31 am
Greetings! I just wanted to take a moment to tell you how much I enjoy your blog and, of course, the comic and encourage you to keep up the good work!
March 2nd, 2009 at 5:18 pm
I love dime novel art, but I can’t let myself look at it too much or I start longing to read the dime novels themselves, and they’re so hard to find! I’d spend my entire life begging for Interlibrary Loans, and now that I no longer work for a university, they’re rather harder to get. Sigh.
March 2nd, 2009 at 5:27 pm
Yeah, it’s a shame there isn’t enough interest to make it worthwhile to put the stories up at Project Gutenberg or something like that. Although I see the stories for what they are, I do enjoy reading them. It’s also odd that the prices have gone up since I know of very few people that really collect them. Mostly it seems to be people who want a few samples, or want the ones with some relation to another interest, like Mormonism or football or the west.
March 2nd, 2009 at 8:30 pm
Have you tried Jess Nevins? I don’t have an email addy handy, but if anyone can find out the info you’re seeking, he can.
March 3rd, 2009 at 8:14 pm
Hank, is Jess the guy at Illustration House? If so, I did get in touch with him a year or two ago. He had no idea. Said the artist was obviously an old pro, whose style was outdated even for its time.
March 4th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
[...] Vía: Lovecraft is missing [...]
March 5th, 2009 at 2:57 am
This might be dumb, but have you thought of contacting the History Detectives from PBS?
March 5th, 2009 at 9:28 am
Jasper, that’s not a dumb idea at all. Wish I’d thought of it. I’m going to look up their website right now….
April 2nd, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Since you mentioned the archives themselves of Street and Smith a took a moment to look up what they have digitized from the collection (I work in library science, so I assume people everywhere do the right thing and slowly work on digitizing all archives.)
I don’t know if you’ve contacted the librarians there, but all the contents of all the boxes are semi-catalogued here: http://library.syr.edu/digital/guides/s/StreetAndSmith/inventory/index.html
You could probably request that they dig out the ” MISCELLANEOUS EDITORIAL FILES” boxes and ask them if there is any record of payment to the cover artist in the following areas:
Contracts
Financial (per the second inventory site this includes “Art vouchers (miscellaneous), alphabetical by originator (7 folders)”)
Memoranda
Notebooks
Record books
Miscellany
There is a more detailed inventory, by box, here too: http://library.syr.edu/digital/guides/s/street_smith.htm#series2
Librarians and archivists LOVE a good puzzle and since these even have the contents pages it not Really a needle in a hay stack even.
Looks like contacting them is easy by using the “ask a question form” in the lower right hand corner of the first site, I recomend sellecting the “Manuscripts and Archival Materials ” option.
Best of luck & always remember the librarian
Please let us all know if you have any luck.
April 28th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
Nice to see! Great job! I wish I had the time and expertise to post such images on line. I have about 40,000 dime novels, story papers and other related items in my collection. If anyone knows of someone in the Long Island, NY area that would like to help me catalog please contact me.
Joe Rainone
May 15th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Hi–I dig the strip a lot. I’m away from home & on a bad connection right now. When I get back next week I’ll start digging.
- Jess Nevins