Editing Kit Carson (section)

=== Dime novels ===
[[File:Fighting Trapper, or Kit Carson to the Rescue.jpg|thumb|upright=1|alt=dime novel with Carson's picture|An 1874 dime novel with a depiction of Carson on the cover, stabbing two Indians simultaneously, one through the chest, and one in the back.]]

During the last half of the nineteenth century, inexpensive novels and pseudo-nonfiction met the need of readers looking for entertainment. Among the major publishing firms was the house of Beadle, opened in 1860. One study, "Kit Carson and Dime Novels, the Making of a Legend" by Darlis Miller, notes some 70 [[dime novel]]s about Carson were either published, re-published with new titles, or incorporated into new works over the period 1860–1901.<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Gordon-McCutchan |editor1-first=R |title=Kit Carson, Indian Fighter or Indian Killer |date=1996 |publisher=University Press of Colorado |location=Niwot, Colorado |isbn=0-87081-393-5 |pages=1–19}}</ref> The usual blood-and-thunder tales exploited Carson's name to sell copies. When competition threatened the house of Beadle, a word-smith said they "just kill more Indians" per page to increase sales.  Skewed images of the personalities and place are exemplified by the Beadle title: ''Kiowa Charley, The White Mustanger; or, Rocky Mountain Kit's Last Scalp Hunt'' (1879) in which an older Carson is said to have "ridden into Sioux camps unattended and alone, had ridden out again, but with the scalps of their greatest warriors at his belt".<ref>Roberts 52, 79</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Kiowa Charlie |url=https://dimenovels.lib.niu.edu/islandora/object/dimenovels%3A130833#page/1/mode/1up |website=Nickels and Dimes |access-date=September 10, 2020}}</ref> Edward Ellis, biographer of Carson, wrote under the pseudonym of J. F. C. Adams ''The Fighting Trapper or Kit Carson to the Rescue'' (1879), another lurid work without any hint of reality.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Fighting Trapper or Kit Carson to the Rescue |url=https://dimenovels.lib.niu.edu/islandora/search/%22Kit%20Carson%22?type=dismax |website=Nickels and Dimes |access-date=September 10, 2020}}</ref>

By the 1880s, the shoot-em-up gunslinger was replacing the frontiersman tales, but of those in the new generation, one critic notes, "where Kit Carson had been represented as slaying hundreds of Indians, the [new] [[dime novel]] hero slew his thousands, with one hand tied behind him."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Smith |first1=Henry |title=Virgin Land, The American West as Symbol and Myth |date=1950 |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |oclc=2414717 |page=103}}</ref> The dime novel's impact was the blurring of the real Carson by creating a mythic character. In fiction, according to historian of literature Richard Etulain, "the small, wiry Kit Carson becomes a ring-tailed roarer, a gigantic Samson...a strong-armed demigod [who] could be victorious and thus pave the way for western settlement."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Etulain |first1=Richard |title=Beyond the Missouri, the Story of the American West |date=2006 |publisher=University of New Mexico Press |location=Albuquerque, New Mexico |isbn=0-8263-4033-4 |page=275}}</ref>