Hard-boiled dames: Stories featuring women detectives, reporters, adventurers, and criminals from the pulp fiction magazines of the 1930s

by Bernard A. Drew

First edition bound in black cloth. Fine in fine DJ.

331 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1986

Reviews

[Aaron · Rating 2 out of 5]

The stories have a loose vibrancy that is exciting at the start, but they uniformly turn to dopey plots and in-artful descriptions of actions.

[Jacob · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun way of seeing how women were portrayed in the old pulps. The lack of political correctness in the stories is to be expected (I personally found much of it amusing) and the subversion of gender stereotypes was subtler than I expected, though still present in many. The fact that tropes for strong women didn't exist when many of the stories were written allow for a lot of refreshingly unique characters. The inclusion of the original illustrations and advertisements was a nice touch.