About the Dalenberg Library

Dale D. Dalenberg, M.D.

Dale is an orthopedic surgeon based in Ottawa, Kansas, and an obsessive bibliophile, a lifelong enthusiast of vintage books and literature. Like many boys of his generation, he was weaned on TV episodes of “Lost in Space” and “Batman,” plus the novels of Robert A. Heinlein and Andre Norton which he discovered in the grade school library.  He started collecting paperbacks in the early 1970s when they were about 75 cents apiece. This includes his very first purchase from a B. Dalton’s bookstore in Phoenix, Arizona: Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke, recommended by a Junior High School teacher.

Dale remains an avid collector to this day, amassing a collection of some 600 19th-Century dime novels, over 3,000 comic books, several rooms full of paperbacks, pulp magazines, CD’s, DVD’s & Blu-Rays, vinyl records, and stacks of hardcovers, including some notable first editions and a number of fine Folio Society editions. He is particularly interested in the evolution of popular fiction from the dime novel to its direct descendants, the pulp magazine, the comic book and the modern paperback.

Dale began writing regularly about what he calls “antique popular literature” in the form of regular newsletters to friends and family (mostly to convince his children that there was worthwhile art being produced ere they were born) before being encouraged by his son Alexander to take his scribblings to the Web. He also blogs on various and sundry other aspects of popular culture, including film, art, & music, plus (occasionally) his own theory of art criticism, Dalenberg’s Context Theory which maintains that art derives its value (both monetary value and aesthetic value) more from context than from intrinsic features.

Contact Dr. Dalenberg

Visit the Dalenberg Film Library!

Check out Dr. Dalenberg’s film site to learn about cult, classic, independent, and award-winning films from around the world.