Deadwood Dick, the Prince of the Road; or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills

by Edward L. (Edward Lytton) Wheeler

"Deadwood Dick, the Prince of the Road; or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills" by Edward Lytton Wheeler is a dime novel published between 1877 and 1897. The story introduced a fictional character whose name became so legendary in the American West that multiple real men in Deadwood, South Dakota—including gamblers, cowboys, stagecoach drivers, and actors—claimed the title as their own, blurring the line between fiction and frontier reality.