Bob Robinson

Bob Robinson has been an active field-level collector of 19th-century American popular fiction for decades. Where Joe Rainone’s collection is famously deep in story papers and reference-quality runs, Bob has done much of his work tracking down the single-issue rarities — the unknown serial, the misshelved estate find, the dealer’s second box.

A meaningful share of the serials and one-off issues that Dark Lantern Tales has been able to scan and reissue came through Bob’s network. He represents the kind of non-institutional preservation work without which the field would be missing whole strands of its surviving record.

“Most of what survives from the dime novel era survives because one collector, somewhere, wouldn’t throw it out.”
— Bob Robinson

Bob’s specialty is the unknown issue — a single surviving copy of a story paper that isn’t in any institutional holding. Several recent Dark Lantern Tales titles were sourced from his collection: scanned, set, proofed, and returned to print for a new generation of readers.

At a glance

Collecting since: the 1970s

Specialty: Story papers · one-off dime novel issues

Network: Paper shows, estate sales, private dealers

Works with: Dark Lantern Tales · researchers