Continually attacked by government officials and educators installment or colportage novels
fascinated their underprivileged readers. Melodrama and sensation were essential ingredients.
The hurriedly written rambling plots sought to electrify fantasies of women with new
turn-of-the-century aspirations. They also fused raw political ideas offering populist and
paternalist solutions to society's challenges and tensions. Through the study of one rare
surviving colportage novel Peter S. Fisher offers an unusual mental and visual panorama of a
nearly vanished Wilhelmine world.
