Frank Tousey

Based in New York, his sensationalism drew a large audience of youth, hungry for scenes of daring and tormented heroes and damsels in distress.

Of particular notice in his approach to the 'blood and thunder' genre were the vivid cover illustrations of his dime novels, which were consistently larger and more thrilling than previous publications.

Although focused on fictional weeklies, Tousey managed a variety of materials over time, including some handbooks, gossip sheets, and even a newspaper on current events in the Spanish–American War.

Tousey and Small gained much success with their newly founded papers New York Boys Weekly (March 17, 1877) and Young Men of America (Sept. 13, 1877).

While Munro's novels featured a shift to more criminal, youthful protagonists, Tousey and Small's front-page pictures exhibited terrifying scenes of aliens, monsters, torture, and overall horror.

Simply put, after combining these four periodicals, only Boys of New York, originally of Munro, and Young Men of America, the brain child of Tousey and Small, continued with their published names.

In 1884 Anthony Comstock charged Tousey for printing G. W. M. Reynolds' "The Mysteries of the Court of London" in The Brookside Library, a story deemed a vice.

As an example of his significant contribution to science fiction, Tousey was largely responsible for the creation of the immensely popular characters Frank Reade and Jack Wright, written by Dr. Harry Enton and Luis Senarens (both published under "Noname').

[10] Certainly, the stories and illustrations in Tousey's dime novels are said to rival Jules Verne for imagination and to have provided the pioneer boy inventors who would lead to Tom Swift.