THE DENVER DOLL: DIME NOVEL HEROINE (1882-1883)

THE DENVER DOLL – The annual Frontierado Holiday will be tomorrow, Friday August 4th. Here is yet another seasonal post while there is still time.

The Denver Doll was one of the many Dime Novel heroines created by author Edward L. Wheeler. Previously, Balladeer’s Blog examined his very first gun-toting Wild West woman, Hurricane Nell. Next, I reviewed Wheeler’s books that featured Baltimore Bess and Cinnamon Chip, two other western heroines who fought the forces of evil in the old west.

This time around my subject is the Denver Doll, whose adventures were published in 1882 and 1883. Her four Dime Novels were:

DENVER DOLL, THE DETECTIVE QUEEN; or YANKEE EISLER’S BIG SURROUND (November 14th, 1882) – In this debut appearance, the Denver Doll’s two fisted, gunslinging, card playing, crimefighting nature is established, along with her mysterious past. The heroine’s secrets aren’t revealed until her fourth and final tale.

To start off Denver Doll’s saga, she takes on Road Agents in Colorado and the evil Mademoiselle Zoe. Alongside the Doll are her sidekicks Yakie Strauss the Dutchman, a “warm-hearted and brave” African American named Fitzwalter August “Walt” Christie and a hard-drinking, roguish Chinese man called Chug.

The Doll is described in typically over-the-top Dime Novel fashion:

“… cast in nature’s happiest mold, her figure in its neat-fitting suit of male attire would attract admiration in any crowd for its symmetry and grace. Her face was fair and expressive, with a power to change from pleasantry to sternness in an instant, and though wearing a happy look, there lurked behind an expression about the brilliant black eyes, and the marble forehead, that told of some past trouble, which would not be forgotten.

“Her rich brown hair fell in rippling waves half-way to her waist. A plumed slouch hat of snowy white; an elegant suit of gray, and patent-leather top-boots … and a sash about her waist gave her an appearance at once dashing, and characteristic of the wild roving existence she led.

“Where she belonged, no one knew, for she was here, there, and everywhere; what was her early history, no one could say … she was a terror too, and hated by the ruffian and outlaw element of the mountains and mines.”

DENVER DOLL’S VICTORY; or SKULL AND CROSSBONES (December 10th, 1882) – In this story our heroine, still astride her horse Colonel and still working with Yakie Strauss the Dutchman, continues her crusade against crime. She takes on a cloaked and robed gang called the Black Georges, with their skull and crossbones insignia.

A child calling himself Little Bill Bethel becomes the Denver Doll’s newest sidekick.

DENVER DOLL’S DECOY; or LITTLE BILL’S BONANZA (January 7th, 1883) – The Denver Doll indulges in some more card playing, trick shooting and Wild West detective work with her personal Short Round, Little Bill Bethel, still at her side. 

While dealing with ornery, sidewinding outlaws this time around, the Doll meets and teams up with Big Buckskin, a handsome adventurer. Buckskin turns out to be Bill Bethel’s long-lost father, and as even more of Little Bill’s bonanza, Big Buckskin is really a knighted Britisher named Sir Clifford.

Having at last been reunited with his missing son, Sir Clifford wants to take him back to England with him to live in luxury. Clifford proposes marriage to the Denver Doll, but she turns him down, saying she would miss her life of adventure. Little Bill stays with the Doll out of a sense of loyalty. 

DENVER DOLL’S DRIFT; or THE ROAD QUEEN’S BIG CAMPAIGN (March 27th, 1883) – The climactic Denver Doll tale! Our heroine is still fighting crime in the Wild West accompanied by Little Bill Bethel and picks up a new sidekick, the 7-foot tall, Oscar Wilde-quoting but ugly Sunflower Sam.

Readers at last learned Denver Doll’s “senses-shattering origin.” When she was a girl of 18, she was married to a man who was despised by her father, one Reuben Morse. (So, the Doll’s maiden name was Morse but we never learn her first name.)

One day our young bride found her husband murdered and, jumping to the conclusion that her father must have killed him, she rode off to the west in order to avoid the pain of seeing her father hanged for her husband’s murder. Her skills emerged over the years and her legend grew.

The Denver Doll came to lead a gang of tough hombres called the Red Shirts before starting her Charley Siringoesque detective career. Having won a mine in a poker game, our heroine named it Denver Doll’s Drift.

In the story’s present day, the Doll loses her mine in a card game against the villainous Jean La Force in Freshet Flats, Arkansas. She also gets accused of a robbery, but in the course of clearing herself and regaining her mine, Denver Doll is reunited with her father and learns he did not kill her husband.

Conveniently, Jean La Force turns out to be the real murderer and is brought to justice, but our heroine’s father does not long outlive him. The Denver Doll hires Sunflower Sam to manage her recovered mine for her.

Little Bill Bethel wants to go to England with the Doll to settle down with his father Sir Clifford, but she declines. Instead, she returns to her life as a detective, with the burden of the past lifted from her shoulders.

*** The four Denver Doll novels were later reprinted in 1889, 1890 and 1900.