Mind Magic was an American pulp magazine which published six issues in 1931. The publisher was Shade Publishing Company of Philadelphia, and the editor was G.R. Bay. It focused on occult fantasy and non-fiction articles about occult topics. After four issues it changed its title to My Self, perhaps in order to broaden its appeal, but it ceased publication the following issue. Writers who appeared in its pages include Ralph Milne Farley, August Derleth, and Manly Wade Wellman.
In June 1931, Shade Publishing Company of Philadelphia launched Mind Magic. At only 64 pages, it was short for a pulp magazine; Shade had planned to set the price at 25 cents, but settled on 20 cents for the launch, which was still higher than most of the magazines it competed with. [2] The editor was G.R. Bay, who was probably the main person in Shade who was interested in offbeat and unusual stories. [3] The target audience was readers interested in the occult and spiritualism. The non-fiction in the magazine including stories of supposedly true experiences with the supernatural, and articles with titles such as "Make Your Ideas Work" and "Secret of Riches". The fiction, described in the magazine as "Psycho-Mystic Stories", was formulaic: magazine historians Mike Ashley and Frank Parnell describe the material as "slight, shallow stories with undeveloped ideas". Among the better-known writers were Manly Wade Wellman, who appeared in the first issue with "Faithful Footsteps", and August Derleth, whose "Wraiths of the Sea" was in the following issue. Ralph Milne Farley's "The Man From Ouija Land" was one of the longer stories to appear; it was serialized in the July and August issues, and later printed in the UK under the title Dangerous Love. Other authors included Ed Earl Repp and Mary Elizabeth Counselman. The title was changed to My Self after four issues, Ashley and Parnell suggest that this might have been in order to broaden the appeal of the magazine, but it did not work, and the December 1931 issue proved to be its last. [2] [4]
The publisher was Shade Publishing Co. of Philadelphia; the editor was Bay throughout, though he was only credited on the final two issues. There were six issues, in one volume of six numbers; it was monthly, running from June 1931 to December 1931, with a combined September/October issue. It was in pulp format, with 64 pages, and was priced at 20 cents. [2]
Weird Tales is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine founded by J. C. Henneberger and J. M. Lansinger in late 1922. The first issue, dated March 1923, appeared on newsstands February 18. The first editor, Edwin Baird, printed early work by H. P. Lovecraft, Seabury Quinn, and Clark Ashton Smith, all of whom went on to be popular writers, but within a year, the magazine was in financial trouble. Henneberger sold his interest in the publisher, Rural Publishing Corporation, to Lansinger, and refinanced Weird Tales, with Farnsworth Wright as the new editor. The first issue under Wright's control was dated November 1924. The magazine was more successful under Wright, and despite occasional financial setbacks, it prospered over the next 15 years. Under Wright's control, the magazine lived up to its subtitle, "The Unique Magazine", and published a wide range of unusual fiction.
Unknown was an American pulp fantasy fiction magazine, published from 1939 to 1943 by Street & Smith, and edited by John W. Campbell. Unknown was a companion to Street & Smith's science fiction pulp, Astounding Science Fiction, which was also edited by Campbell at the time; many authors and illustrators contributed to both magazines. The leading fantasy magazine in the 1930s was Weird Tales, which focused on shock and horror. Campbell wanted to publish a fantasy magazine with more finesse and humor than Weird Tales, and put his plans into action when Eric Frank Russell sent him the manuscript of his novel Sinister Barrier, about aliens who own the human race. Unknown's first issue appeared in March 1939; in addition to Sinister Barrier, it included H. L. Gold's "Trouble With Water", a humorous fantasy about a New Yorker who meets a water gnome. Gold's story was the first of many in Unknown to combine commonplace reality with the fantastic.
Manly Wade Wellman was an American writer. While his science fiction and fantasy stories appeared in such pulps as Astounding Stories, Startling Stories, Unknown and Strange Stories, Wellman is best remembered as one of the most popular contributors to the legendary Weird Tales and for his fantasy and horror stories set in the Appalachian Mountains, which draw on the native folklore of that region. Karl Edward Wagner referred to him as "the dean of fantasy writers." Wellman also wrote in a wide variety of other genres, including historical fiction, detective fiction, western fiction, juvenile fiction, and non-fiction.
Oriental Stories, later retitled The Magic Carpet Magazine, was an American pulp magazine published by Popular Fiction Co., and edited by Farnsworth Wright. It was launched in 1930 under the title Oriental Stories as a companion to Popular Fiction's Weird Tales, and carried stories with far eastern settings, including some fantasy. Contributors included Robert E. Howard, Frank Owen, and E. Hoffman Price. The magazine was not successful, and in 1932 publication was paused after the Summer issue.
Analog Science Fiction and Fact is an American science fiction magazine published under various titles since 1930. Originally titled Astounding Stories of Super-Science, the first issue was dated January 1930, published by William Clayton, and edited by Harry Bates. Clayton went bankrupt in 1933 and the magazine was sold to Street & Smith. The new editor was F. Orlin Tremaine, who soon made Astounding the leading magazine in the nascent pulp science fiction field, publishing well-regarded stories such as Jack Williamson's Legion of Space and John W. Campbell's "Twilight". At the end of 1937, Campbell took over editorial duties under Tremaine's supervision, and the following year Tremaine was let go, giving Campbell more independence. Over the next few years Campbell published many stories that became classics in the field, including Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, A. E. van Vogt's Slan, and several novels and stories by Robert A. Heinlein. The period beginning with Campbell's editorship is often referred to as the Golden Age of Science Fiction.
Future Science Fiction and Science Fiction Stories were two American science fiction magazines that were published under various names between 1939 and 1943 and again from 1950 to 1960. Both publications were edited by Charles Hornig for the first few issues; Robert W. Lowndes took over in late 1941 and remained editor until the end. The initial launch of the magazines came as part of a boom in science fiction pulp magazine publishing at the end of the 1930s. In 1941 the two magazines were combined into one, titled Future Fiction combined with Science Fiction, but in 1943 wartime paper shortages ended the magazine's run, as Louis Silberkleit, the publisher, decided to focus his resources on his mystery and western magazine titles. In 1950, with the market improving again, Silberkleit relaunched Future Fiction, still in the pulp format. In the mid-1950s he also relaunched Science Fiction, this time under the title Science Fiction Stories. Silberkleit kept both magazines on very slim budgets throughout the 1950s. In 1960 both titles ceased publication when their distributor suddenly dropped all of Silberkleit's titles.
Dynamic Science Stories was an American pulp magazine which published two issues, dated February and April 1939. A companion to Marvel Science Stories, it was edited by Robert O. Erisman and published by Western Fiction Publishing. Among the better known authors who appeared in its pages were L. Sprague de Camp and Manly Wade Wellman.
Miracle Science and Fantasy Stories was an American pulp science fiction magazine which published two issues in 1931. The fiction was unremarkable, but the cover art and illustrations, by Elliott Dold, were high quality, and have made the magazine a collector's item. The magazine ceased publication when Dold became ill and was unable to continue his duties both as editor and artist.
Strange Stories was a pulp magazine which ran for thirteen issues from 1939 to 1941. It was edited by Mort Weisinger, who was not credited. Contributors included Robert Bloch, Eric Frank Russell, C. L. Moore, August Derleth, and Henry Kuttner. Strange Stories was a competitor to the established leader in weird fiction, Weird Tales. With the launch, also in 1939, of the well-received Unknown, Strange Stories was unable to compete. It ceased publication in 1941 when Weisinger left to edit Superman comic books.
Strange Tales was an American pulp magazine first published from 1931 to 1933 by Clayton Publications. It specialized in fantasy and weird fiction, and was a significant competitor to Weird Tales, the leading magazine in the field. Its published stories include "Wolves of Darkness" by Jack Williamson, as well as work by Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith. The magazine ceased publication when Clayton entered bankruptcy. It was temporarily revived by Wildside Press, which published three issues edited by Robert M. Price from 2003 to 2007.
Tales of Magic and Mystery was a pulp magazine which published five monthly issues from December 1927 to April 1928. It was edited by Walter Gibson, and published a mixture of fiction and articles on magic. It is now mainly remembered for having published a story by H.P. Lovecraft.
10 Story Fantasy was a science fiction and fantasy pulp magazine which was launched in 1951. The market for pulp magazines was already declining by that time, and the magazine only lasted a single issue. The stories were of generally good quality, and included work by many well-known writers, such as John Wyndham, A.E. van Vogt and Fritz Leiber. The most famous story it published was Arthur C. Clarke's "Sentinel from Eternity", which later became part of the basis of the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Ghost Stories was an American pulp magazine that published 64 issues between 1926 and 1932. It was one of the earliest competitors to Weird Tales, the first magazine to specialize in the fantasy and occult fiction genre. It was a companion magazine to True Story and True Detective Stories, and focused almost entirely on stories about ghosts, many of which were written by staff writers but presented under pseudonyms as true confessions. These were often accompanied by faked photographs to make the stories appear more believable. Ghost Stories also had original and reprinted contributions, including works by Robert E. Howard, Carl Jacobi, and Frank Belknap Long. Among the reprints were Agatha Christie's "The Last Seance", several stories by H.G. Wells, and Charles Dickens's "The Signal-Man". Initially successful, the magazine began to lose readers and in 1930 was sold to Harold Hersey. Hersey was unable to reverse the magazine's decline, and publication of Ghost Stories ceased in early 1932.
The Witch's Tales was an American pulp magazine edited by Tom Chadburn which published two issues in November and December 1936. It was a companion to a radio program, called The Witch's Tale, which had begun broadcasting in May 1931. With the exception of the lead story in each issue, all the stories were reprints from the American edition of Pearson's Magazine. Alonzo Deen Cole, who wrote the radio series, contributed one lead story, and provided the plot for the other. The authors of the reprint stories included George Daulton, Wardon Allan Curtis, William Hamilton Osborne, and John C. Haywood.
The Other Worlds is an anthology of science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories, edited by Phil Stong. It was originally published by Wilfred Funk in 1941, with a lower-price edition following from Garden City Publishing a year later. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction describes it as "the first important sf Anthology".; it remains in the collection of nearly 200 academic libraries in 2015.
Wonder Story Annual was a science fiction pulp magazine which was launched in 1950 by Standard Magazines. It was created as a vehicle to reprint stories from early issues of Wonder Stories, Startling Stories, and Wonder Stories Quarterly, which were owned by the same publisher. It lasted for four issues, succumbing in 1953 to competition from the growing market for paperback science fiction. Reprinted stories included Twice in Time, by Manly Wade Wellman, and "The Brain-Stealers of Mars", by John W. Campbell.
Science-fiction and fantasy magazines began to be published in the United States in the 1920s. Stories with science-fiction themes had been appearing for decades in pulp magazines such as Argosy, but there were no magazines that specialized in a single genre until 1915, when Street & Smith, one of the major pulp publishers, brought out Detective Story Magazine. The first magazine to focus solely on fantasy and horror was Weird Tales, which was launched in 1923, and established itself as the leading weird fiction magazine over the next two decades; writers such as H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith and Robert E. Howard became regular contributors. In 1926 Weird Tales was joined by Amazing Stories, published by Hugo Gernsback; Amazing printed only science fiction, and no fantasy. Gernsback included a letter column in Amazing Stories, and this led to the creation of organized science-fiction fandom, as fans contacted each other using the addresses published with the letters. Gernsback wanted the fiction he printed to be scientifically accurate, and educational, as well as entertaining, but found it difficult to obtain stories that met his goals; he printed "The Moon Pool" by Abraham Merritt in 1927, despite it being completely unscientific. Gernsback lost control of Amazing Stories in 1929, but quickly started several new magazines. Wonder Stories, one of Gernsback's titles, was edited by David Lasser, who worked to improve the quality of the fiction he received. Another early competitor was Astounding Stories of Super-Science, which appeared in 1930, edited by Harry Bates, but Bates printed only the most basic adventure stories with minimal scientific content, and little of the material from his era is now remembered.
Fanciful Tales of Time and Space was a semi-professional science fiction and fantasy magazine which published one issue in 1936. It was published by Donald A. Wollheim and Wilson Shepherd, two young science fiction fans; Wollheim was based in New York City, but the magazine was printed in Oakman, Alabama, where Shepherd had a letter press.
Golden Fleece Historical Adventure was an American adventure pulp magazine which published nine issues between 1938 and 1939. Golden Fleece specialised in publishing historical fiction. It published two stories by Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan the Barbarian: "Black Vulmea's Vengeance" and "Gates of Empire". Other writers included Talbot Mundy, H. Bedford-Jones, Ralph Milne Farley, Anthony M. Rud and Murray Leinster. Contributing artists included Jay Jackson, Harold Delay, Harold McCauley, and Margaret Brundage, who painted two covers for Golden Fleece.
Marvel Tales and Unusual Stories were two related American semi-professional science fiction magazines published in 1934 and 1935 by William L. Crawford. Crawford was a science fiction fan who believed that the pulp magazines of the time were too limited in what they would publish. In 1933, he distributed a flyer announcing Unusual Stories, and declaring that no taboos would prevent him from publishing worthwhile fiction. The flyer included a page from P. Schuyler Miller's "The Titan", which Miller had been unable to sell to the professional magazines because of its sexual content. A partial issue of Unusual Stories was distributed in early 1934, but Crawford then launched a new title, Marvel Tales, in May 1934. A total of five issues of Marvel Tales and three of Unusual Stories appeared over the next two years.