Sensational fiction of the 1820–1870 period consisted largely of inexpensive, mass-produced pamphlet novels, many of them in yellow paper jackets embla-zoned with racy titles in lurid dark lettering and melodramatic lithographs that ranged from the titillating to the horrific. Designed as ephemeral entertainment for a mobile readership, this fiction was an important barometer of popular taste and a revelation of such issues as class relations, gender, ethnicity, and the contexts of major American literature.

The heyday of yellow-covered sensational novels was the two decades from 1840 to 1860. Before then, sensational stories appeared mainly in newspapers. Although all societies since ancient times have hungered for sensationalism, antebellum America developed unique ways of satisfying this hunger. The 1830s witnessed a newspaper revolution. Improvements in technology and transportation facilitated the rapid dissemination of...