The ballad and the folk song have long been recognized as important keys to the thoughts a

nd feelings of a people, but the dime novel though sought by the collector and referred to in a general way by the social historian, is dismissed with a smile of amusement by almost everyone else. Neither folk songs nor dime novels were actually created by the plain people of America. But in their devotion to these modes of expression, the people made them their own. The dime novel, interested as it was for the great masses and designed to fill the pockets of both author and publisher, quite naturally sought the lowest common denominator: themes that were found to be popular and attitudes that met with the most general approval became stereotyped. Moreover, the dime novel, reflecting a much wider range of attitudes and ideas than the ballad and tile folk song, is the nearest thing we have had in this country to a true "proletarian" literature, that is, a literature written for the great masses of people and actually read by them.

Although a study of our dime novels alone cannot enable anyone to determine what are the essential characteristics of the American tradition, it can contribute materially to that end. Sooner or later, the industrious researchers who have minded so many obscure lodes of American literary expression will almost certainly turn their attention to these novels and all their kind. Let no one think, however, that the salmon-covered paperbacks once so eagerly devoured by soldiers, lumberjacks trainmen, hired girl, and adolescent boys now make exciting or agreeable even for the historian, much as the social and historical implications may interest him. As for the crowds today who get their sensational thrills from the movies and the tabloids, 1 fear that they would find these hair-raisers of an earlier age deadly dull.

The principal intention of the author of a dime novel was to ______.

A．explore a segment of American society

B．promote the American political philosophy

C．raise the level of intelligence of the great masses of people

D．make money