Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road

The the first issue of Deadwood Dick is entitled Deadwood Dick, Prince of the Road. It is an action-packed tale of a handful of settlers, gold-seekers and bad guys pack who concentrate into a small town in the Black Hills to determine their respective fates. Here's a sampling of the main characters: Fearless Frank once saved Sitting Bull's life, making it possible to save a young woman who Sitting Bull. Frank likes scarlet-dyed buckskins. The "General" is a little old man who looks like a deformed dwarf, but his dreams reveal the location of gold mines. Deadwood Dick is a young man, perhaps even a teenager, who seems to lead a gang that like to rob stages. Calamity Jane plays a central role in the story.

Edward Lytton Wheeler (1854/5 1885) was a nineteenth century American writer of dime novels. One of his most famous characters is the Wild West rascal Deadwood Dick. His stories of the west mixed fictional characters with real-life personalities of the era, including Calamity Jane and Sitting Bull.

After the Civil War, dime novels were an extremely popular form of fiction. Wheeler mastered their formulaic style and was able to write dozens of them. He created around one hundred novels, of which 33 featured Deadwood Dick, and of these, Calamity Jane, a real-life wild west entertainer, appeared as a character in nearly half. Other real life people such as Sitting Bull also appeared in the stories. He also wrote story series with a number of other characters including Rosebud Bob, Sierra Sam, Kangaroo Kit, Yreka Jim, Denver Doll, and Lady Kate.

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