Have the earliest Nick Carter stories been archived?
Captain Marvel
Sherlock Holmes - I got to wondering if the earliest Nick Carter
stories had been rescued and put up online somewhere. I don't mean
the pulp series of the '30s but the early stories that ran largely the
same time Conan Doyle was writing his Holmes stories.
The Wiki article says that the first Nick Carter story appeared in THE
OLD DETECTIVES PUPIL; it also says that NICK CARTER WEEKLY became
S&S's DETECTIVE STORY MAGAZINE in 1915.
Were any of the early Nick Carter stories published in other magazines
or were these two it? Just wondering since I was thinking about
digging around Project Gutenberg to see what I could find.
Captain Marvel
probably be useful to anyone else interested in the early Nick Carter
material.
A search using Google Books turned up a book published in 1982 called
DIME NOVEL DETECTIVE by Gary Hoppenstand. Searching for "Nick Carter
Weekly" turned up with the beginning of Chapter 4 subtitled BOB BROOKS
LIBRARY 1893 BOB BROOKS (with an addendum on Nick Carter)
The chapter is primarily about the character Bob Brooks {a copy
character of Nick Carter} but the beginning paragraphs offer a few
solid details about Nick Carter.
The first story was entitled THE OLD DETECTIVE'S PUPIL, OR THE
MYSTERIOUS CRIME OF MADISON SQUARE the magazine the story was
serialized in was NEW YORK WEEKLY beginning Sept. 18, 1886.
Perhaps unsurprisingly Nick Carter is something of a precursor to Doc
Savage. Nick Carter was introduced as "the world's greatest detective"
and was the son of Sim Carter, who the book mentions as being a great
detective. Hoppenstand notes that Carter was often called "little
Hercules" because while short in stature he more than makes up for it
in intelligence, strength, and courage.
QUOTE =============
Virtually nothing was outside the abilities of this amazing
powerhouse. He could bend a bar of iron in his bare hands. He could
run faster, climb higher, and throw farther than anyone during his
time or since. Nick Carter became the by-word vernacular for the best
that was humanly, or inhumanly possible
=============== END QUOTE
Hoppenstand goes on to note that Nick Carter eventually runs into the
problem of simply being too powerful for the common criminal. {a
problem that has become more commonplace with the development of the
comic book superhero}. So a villain whose power and abilities matched
Carter's own is developed -- Doctor Jack Quartz, Carter's single
greatest adversary. Hoppenstand states that Dr. Quartz was a
criminal mastermind and highly skilled surgeon and scientist; the
villain appears in many Nick Carter adventures typically depicted as
being of medium heigth, clean-shaven, a bit portly, and almost as
strong as Carter. Hoppenstand also says that Nick Carter and Dr.
Quartz were written has having great respect for each other.
Hoppenstand says that the first extended series of Nick Carter stories
were published in the NICK CARTER LIBRARY, beginning in 1891 and
running for 282 issues. Then what Hoppenstand says was the longest
running NC series the NEW NICK CARTER WEEKLY beginning 1897 and
running for 819 issues and (quote) "...NICK CARTER STORIES, NEW
MAGNET, and STREET & SMITH'S DETECTIVE STORY MAGAZINE." I used the
direct quote because it isn't clear whether the NCS, NM, SSDSM were
all subsequent retitlings of NNCW. I've found multiple listings
citing that NNCW becomes DSM in 1915. And I just glanced through
Hoppenstands' preface and it seems that NCW did become NICK CARTER
STORIES before it became DSM and that S&S issued a Nick Carter story
every week until Oct. 2, 1915. And that MAGNET and NEW MAGNET re-
published these early Nick Carter stories until 1933.
From the preface it seems that the dime novel market was flooded with
detectives of countless varieties but that Nick Carter was the first
really successful character.
Gosh -- after finding all that out, now I'm even more interesting in
tracking down the early Nick Carter stories.