Dime n. A silver coin of the United States, of the value of ten cents; the tenth of a dollar.
Dime novel, a novel, commonly sensational and trashy, which is sold for a dime, or ten cents; they were popular from ca. 1850 to ca. 1920. Sometimes the term is still applied to any novel of the type, though the price has greatly increased.
... landed sprawling in the snow outside, sweeping the lean woman down with me. It was very like a dime novel. Three lone women who, for purposes of intensification, may be called enemies, staring with white faces at a wall of dirt, and trying to realise that a minute before it had been a black hole. And at the other end of that hole now were two men horribly imprisoned in a rock-walled tomb ... — A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson
... Island" appeared, the public was gasping for the oxygen that a story with outdoor movement and action could supply: there was enough and to spare of invertebrate subtleties, strained metaphysics and coarse naturalistic studies. A sublimated dime novel like "Treasure Island" came at the psychologic moment; the year before "The New Arabian Nights" had offered the same sort of pabulum, but had been practically overlooked. Readers were only too glad to turn from people with a past to people ... — Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
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