One of America's oldest publishing houses, Street and Smith helped to ensure the spread of mass literacy in the United States. Producing inexpensive books and periodicals, Street and Smith was long known for its dime novels, pulp fiction, popular magazines, and comic books. Featured prominently were the tales of Jesse James, Buffalo Bill, Nick Carter, Frank Merriwell, and the Shadow. Noteworthy authors included Edward Z. C. Judson, Horatio Alger Jr., Gilbert M. Patten, and Eugene T. Sawyer, while reprints of Rudyard Kipling, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Victor Hugo abounded. In the 1850s, Street and Smith began producing dime novels, soon becoming the most successful publisher in the field, surpassing even Beadle and Adams, Munro, and Tousey. As one commentator quipped, "Munros to the left of them, Tousey to right of them, Street and Smith behind them, Onward they blood-and-thundered." Beginning...