 Extremely popular during their time, they were often reprinted and new stories have been created as recently as 2011, in the pulp short story collection, "Wildthyme in Purple".His inventions included airships of the dirigible-balloon and helicopter type, submersibles, steam-driven and electrical land vehicles, and steam- and electric-powered robots.The Frank Reade stories are perhaps the best known of the many boys' invention fiction series published in America during the later 19th century.