People & Links · Profiles
Joe Rainone
A lifetime inside the paper-thin margins of the dime novel — and one of the reasons so much nineteenth-century popular literature still exists to be rediscovered.
THE COLLECTION
Considering the half dozen preeminent collectors of popular literature in the recent one hundred years, Joseph L. Rainone’s holdings can compare to any of them. And Joe is very much alive today, watching the field, helping researchers, and keeping the paper alive.
Students of this literature are indebted to J. Randolph Cox for creating his seminal Dime Novel Companion. To expand and complement the work of Cox, Joe Rainone teamed up with E. M. Sanchez-Saavedra to produce The Illustrated Dime Novel Price Guide Companion — the standard reference for the field, over 1,700 images.
“The dime novel didn’t die — it got thrown out. Most of what survives survives because one or two collectors couldn’t throw it out either.”
— Joe Rainone, Preview Magazine
Highlights from the Rainone Collection
The collection runs to several thousand issues across Beadle, Munro, Tousey, and Street & Smith imprints, with particularly strong holdings of Old Sleuth, Old Cap. Collier, and the earliest New York Detective Library numbers. The Preview Magazine interview below gives a sense of the scope.
At a glance
About Joe
Collecting since: the 1960s
Specialty: Shilling Shockers · Dime Novels · Story Papers · Early Detective Libraries
Co-author: The Illustrated Dime Novel Price Guide Companion
Recent press: Preview Magazine feature interview
External Resources
Preview Magazine
The long-form Joe Rainone interview
A deep piece on Joe’s collecting career — how he started, what he hunts for, and what’s most at risk of being lost forever.
Read more →
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