Background
The character of Nick Carter was created in 1886 by John Russell Coryell (1848-1924), and his lurid adventures were continued by other writers, notably Thomas Chalmers Harbaugh (1849-1924) and Frederick Van Renssalaer Dey (1861-1922); often the writer used the pseudonym of Nick Carter. Some four million copies of the stories were sold, usually in pulp-magazine form. They were an outgrowth of the so-called dime novel produced by hack writers of the Civil War and Reconstruction eras, generally simple romantic tales of the West with heroes like Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett and clear-cut villains who are inevitably foiled. The Nick Carter stories were less wholesome and related the operations of their sleuth-hero in an endless series, much like subsequent comic books.
