Deadwood Dick is a fictional character who appears in a series of stories, or dime novels, published between 1877 and 1897 by Edward Lytton Wheeler. His stories are well-plotted adventures and his slang and dialect heavy narration is funny as hell. Deadwood Dick was an orphan, who was adopted, mistreated, and then ran away from home to become a notorious outlaw. Originally from New England, he moved to the town of Deadwood, where he became the leader of a gang of highway men, wanted dead or alive for a $500 bounty. He is handsome, valiant, charming and sarcastic and sees himself as a defender of the weak.