The Beadle publishing house was responsible for the publication of large numbers of dime novels in series in the second half of the nineteenth century. The company belonged, under a variety of names and with variations in partnership, to brothers Erastus and Irwin Beadle, who began publishing in Buffalo in 1851. Erastus Beadle first published in partnership with Benjamin Vanduzee as Beadle and Vanduzee from 1851 to 1853; Erastus and Irwin Beadle published as Beadle and Brother from 1853 to 1856; Erastus and Robert Adams published as Beadle and Adams from 1856 to 1860, and Irwin began publishing in New York as Irwin P. Beadle and Company from around 1858. Erastus Beadle and Richard Adams bought Irwin out in 1862 and published as Beadle and Company until 1872, when the name reverted to Beadle and Adams, which was retained until the company was sold in 1898.
The first dime novel series was published in 1860 and the company flourished during the American Civil War. Beadle's American Sixpenny Publishing House was opened in London in 1861 to publish Beadle's American Library. The English branch was sold to George Routledge and Sons in 1866.
In its many series, Beadle published popular fiction, some of which had been previously serialised in its Saturday Journal (other titles Beadle's Weekly, Banner Weekly). Series within Beadle's Dime Novels (from 1874 New Dime Novels) included Beadle's American Novels, Irwin's Sixpenny Tales, American Tales, Dime Book of Fun, Fifty Cents Books, Cheap Editions of Popular Authors, and Beadle and Adams Twenty Cent Novels. The American Dime Library published more than a thousand westerns; other series offered romances, and boys' adventures.
Some Beadle dime novels continued to be published until 1937, although Beadle and Adams was purchased by M. J. Ivers and Co. in 1898, and that company's assets were bought after 1905 by Arthur Westbrook Company.
