HURRICANE NELL: DIME NOVEL HEROINE

HURRICANE NELL, THE GIRL DEAD-SHOT (1877) – Written by Edward L. Wheeler. This blog post is dedicated to the prolific author and fellow blogger Jacqui Murray from WordDreams here at WP. Her blog is ideal for blogging tips, information on her latest book releases and much more. Jacqui had expressed interest in Dime Novel heroes and heroines for my Frontierado Holiday coverage this year, so here is the first of many more posts I will make about these often forgotten characters.

In general, the Dime Novel period of westerns, detective, science fiction and horror tales lasted from 1860 to around 1919 or the early 1920s. Pulp magazines took over from there. Many Dime Novels were very loosely based on real-life figures like Buffalo Bill, Calamity Jane and others. Many more were purely fictional.

That brings us back to Hurricane Nell, the Girl Dead-Shot, also known as Hurricane Nell, the Queen of the Saddle and Lasso, and, in a misleading re-titling, as Bob Woolf, the Border Ruffian. (NOT three separate books.) Though published in May of 1877, Nell’s adventures were set earlier in the 1800s than most of the other big-name heroines of Dime Novels, so I am starting with her and will move on to the others in the next few weeks.

Hurricane Nell started life as Nelly Allen, and was around 13 years old when Bob Woolf and his gang of Missouri outlaws set fire to her family’s home in Kansas intent on murdering her parents (who were already dead of small pox anyway). In typical pulp fiction fashion, Nelly vowed to get revenge on the men who burned her home.

As the fire raged and Bob Woolf and his thugs rode off, Nelly said “Hear me swear unto you that as sure as there is a God and a ruling power on Earth, I will have revenge for this heartless act of the outlaw chief and his murderous gang … Though I must leave the bodies of my parents to roast in the flames, I will escape and live to spill the blood of every accursed wretch who was with Bob Woolf today and will reserve him for my last victim!”

With no siblings left, Nelly raised herself from then on and over the next 5 years became highly skilled at wilderness survival techniques, Native American languages, tracking, marksmanship and horsemanship. She earned the nickname Hurricane Nell and while scouting for the army and guiding wagon trains she gunned down countless outlaws who crossed her path, including several members of Bob Woolf’s gang.

The narration tells us “”Nellie had brown hair, alluring hazel eyes and was considered very attractive. She wore a tight, form fitting buckskin suit, with fringe and Indian beads on it. She carried a rifle, two pistols on her hip and a lasso on her belt. She was more articulate than most of the men around her, she was considered to have saint-like morals, and she considered her word more precious than anything she could ever own.

“She was also daring and highly skilled, capable of doing anything as well as a man. She was an exceptional rider and roper and she was a crack shot with any kind of firearm. Her whole life is dedicated to the one terrible object, revenge.”

And further – “She comes and goes at will. No one dares to cross her path. She is a modest and pleasant companion, to those she fancies, but to her enemies she is an actual terror. Why, sir, once I seen her shoot a feller, in yonder, just for forcibly kissin’ an Indian girl, ‘ginst her will.”

By now 18 or 19 years of age, Hurricane Nell is hired as a guide by a handsome Philadelphia lawyer named Cecil Burnett. He falls in love with the gunslinging, two-fisted young lady, and doesn’t mind when she has to rescue him from assorted dangers.

Cecil is brave and loyal and Hurricane Nell falls for him, too, and when their adventure together is over and the archvillain Bob Woolf gets his, the two ride off together. The epilogue tells us that the couple got married.

It should go without saying that certain elements of a novel written in 1877 will not match our own attitudes here in 2023, but that is part of the importance of such works and the way they preserve cultural attitudes and perceptions as they really were at the time.

Even accounting for that, Hurricane Nell, the Girl Dead-Shot is a fun read and has a raw force to it that might have been diluted in anything but the blunt Dime Novel format.  

Though this was the only Hurricane Nell Dime Novel, it was the first one written by Edward L. Wheeler, who would go on to write several dozen more, some of them featuring multiple adventures of other fiery young ladies of the Wild West. I’ll review some of those soon.

Frontierado will be Friday, August 4th this year. FOR REAL-LIFE LADY GUNSLINGERS OF THE OLD WEST CLICK HERE.