Audiobook · read by volunteers
Deadwood Dick's Doom; or, Calamity Jane's Last Adventure
Edward L. Wheeler (1855–1885)
Read by Lucy Burgoyne (1950-2014), Lizzie Driver, Kristin Hughes (1974-2021), Karen Savage, Chris Hughes, Kirsten Ferreri, Joshua B. Christensen, Cori Samuel, Esther · 14 chapters · 2 h 55
About the book
The Wild West is in full swing. Deadwood Dick, the outlaw hero with a legend behind him, rides into trouble once more, and at his side, or sometimes in his way, is Calamity Jane, a woman who can hold her own against any man in the territory. There are roguish gunmen, chivalrous gentlemen eager to protect the helpless, and hostile encounters on the trail. Edward L. Wheeler’s dime novel, published around 1899, offers the thrills of its genre in full measure: chases, rescues, pistols, speeches and sudden twists. It is pulp fiction at its most unashamed, and an entertaining window on what American readers once devoured by the million. Nine LibriVox volunteers voice the fourteen chapters, giving the tale a lively, theatrical air. Hold your hat and enjoy the ride.
Introduction
Edward L. Wheeler was born in 1855 and died in 1885. He wrote for the popular dime-novel publishers of the nineteenth century, a business that produced cheap, fast-moving adventure stories for a mass audience, and he is chiefly remembered as the author who created the character of Deadwood Dick.
Deadwood Dick’s Doom; or, Calamity Jane’s Last Adventure belongs to a long series of tales about this outlaw hero, who is a fictional invention and should not be confused with any real person. The book is dated around 1899, though the author had died more than a decade earlier, and the date presumably reflects a later edition. Calamity Jane, who also appears in the story, was a real frontier figure, but the Calamity Jane of the novel is a character of legend.
Dime novels were sold in huge numbers and were often read until they fell apart. They are valuable now as a record of popular taste, and they preserved a particular picture of the American West, one full of dramatic chases and fixed roles for heroes, villains and women. Some attitudes, including the portrayal of Native Americans, reflect the prejudices of the period and will strike modern ears as crude.
The recording has fourteen chapters and lasts almost three hours. Nine LibriVox volunteers share the reading, which suits the melodramatic style well. It is a brisk, adventurous listen for anyone interested in Westerns, American popular culture or the history of cheap fiction.
Public domain
Edward L. Wheeler died in 1885: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text