Oriental Stories, later retitled The Magic Carpet Magazine, was an American pulp magazine published by Popular Fiction 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. In 1932 publication was paused after the Summer issue; it was relaunched in 1933 under the title The Magic Carpet Magazine, with an expanded editorial policy that now included any story set in an exotic location, including other planets.
Some science fiction began to appear alongside the fantasy and adventure material as a result, including work by Edmond Hamilton. Wright obtained stories from H. Bedford Jones, who was a popular pulp writer, and Seabury Quinn. Most of the covers of The Magic Carpet Magazine were by Margaret Brundage, including her first sale; Brundage later became well-known as a cover artist for Weird Tales. Competition from established pulps in the same niche, such as Adventure, was too strong, and after five issues under the new title the magazine ceased publication.
Publication history and contents
In 1923, J. C Henneberger and J. M. Lansinger's Rural Publishing Corporation launched Weird Tales, as a companion to their existing magazines, College Humor, The Magazine of Fun, and Detective Tales.[1]Weird Tales soon ran into financial trouble, and in late 1924 Henneberger and Lansinger split control of their stable of magazines: Henneberger formed a new company, Popular Fiction, took Weird Tales, and gave up the other titles to Lansinger.[2][3] Henneberger hired Farnsworth Wright as editor;[2][3] Wright liked adventure and fantasy fiction with oriental settings, and printed some in Weird Tales, by writers such as Frank Owen.[4] In 1930 Henneberger and Wright decided to launch a companion magazine that specialized in oriental fiction.[4] According to Henneberger's later recollection, the idea came from Weird Tales's printer, who was looking to fill unused slots in his printing schedule, but Wright later claimed that the magazine's launch was inspired by Herbert Hoover's optimism about the economy.[5] The plans for the new magazine were in place by June 1930, when Wright wrote to Robert E. Howard, telling him about the new magazine, and asking him to submit stories.[6] Howard complied, and his "The Voice of El-Lil", about a lost city in Mesopotamia, appeared in the first issue, along with two stories by Frank Owen, and "The Man Who Limped" by Otis Adelbert Kline, the first in a series about a dragoman (interpreter) named Hamad the Attar. Other contributors included E. Hoffman Price, Frank Belknap Long, August Derleth, and David H. Keller. These were all known for fantasy, but Oriental Stories also published work by writers of non-fantasy adventures, including S. B. H. Hurst, James W. Bennett, and Warren Hastings. Frank Owen followed his stories in the first issue with seven more over the next three years, including "Della Wu, Chinese Courtesan", in the third issue, described by magazine historian Mike Ashley as one of his best-known tales.[7]
The first issue under the new title, dated January 1933. The cover art is by Margaret Brundage.
The schedule was initially bimonthly (every two months), with a date of October/November 1930 on the cover of the first issue, but this only lasted for three issues before changing to quarterly, with the fourth issue dated Spring 1931.[7] The Spring 1932 issue contained Dorothy Quick's first sale to Wright, "Scented Gardens";[7] Quick sold one more story to Oriental Stories and many more to Weird Tales over the next two decades.[7][8] The cover of the Spring 1932 issue was Margaret Brundage's first sale.[7] Wright used Brundage's artwork on the cover of every remaining issue of the magazine except for July 1933, which was by J. Allen St. John, a popular pulp artist.[9][10] Brundage went on to become one of Weird Tales' best-known cover artists of the 1930s.[7]
After the Summer 1932 issue there was a break in publication, while Wright planned to relaunch it. The next issue was dated January 1933 (though the schedule remained quarterly), and the title was now The Magic Carpet Magazine. Wright had decided to broaden the editorial policy to include stories from any faraway places, including other planets; this meant the magazine was now a market for science fiction as well as fantasy and adventure stories. The second issue under the new title included Edmond Hamilton's "Kaldar, World of Antares", the first in a series similar to Edgar Rice Burroughs's Barsoom stories which were set on Mars.[7] Howard, a regular in Oriental Stories, continued to appear, with three more contributions; the last, "The Shadow of the Vulture", was the first story of his to feature Red Sonya, a female barbarian heroine who became the basis for the Red Sonja character in comics and films.[11][12] More regulars from Weird Tales began to appear, including Seabury Quinn. The January 1933 issue included H. Bedford Jones's "Master of Dragons". Jones was a very popular writer who wrote for higher-paying pulps, and Wright would have been delighted to secure a story from him, though Ashley suggests that since The Magic Carpet Magazine's rates were lower than Jones' usual markets, this was probably a story that had already been rejected by other magazines. Jones sold two more stories to Wright over the next year, but the magazine was not doing well financially. The "exotic adventure story" niche was already occupied by successful pulp magazines such as Adventure, and The Magic Carpet Magazine did not have the resources to compete. The January 1934 issue was the last one. Material bought for the magazine by Wright was published in Weird Tales instead, including another Kaldar story by Edmond Hamilton.[7]
The magazine, under both titles, fetches high prices from collectors. Ed Hulse, a historian of pulp magazines, considers the January 1934 issue likely to be the most expensive because it includes Howard's "Red Sonya" story, but a 2001 price guide to pulp collecting lists all issues at between $150 and $200 (equivalent to $260 to $340 in 2023), except for the first issue, October/November 1930, which is listed at $300.[11][13]
Bibliographic details
Winter
Spring
Summer
Autumn
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
Sep
Oct
Nov
Dec
1930
1/1
1/2
1931
1/2
1/3
1/4
1/5
1/6
1932
2/1
2/2
2/3
1933
3/1
3/2
3/3
3/4
1934
4/1
Issues of Oriental Stories, showing volume/issue number. Underlining indicates that an issue was titled as a quarterly (e.g. "Summer 1931") rather than as a monthly. From the January 1933 issue the title was changed to Magic Carpet. Farnsworth Wright was editor throughout.[14][7]
The magazine, under both titles, was published by Popular Fiction Co. of Chicago, and edited by Farnsworth Wright.[7][15] It was in small pulp format (6.5 by 9 inches (17 by 23cm)).[7][16] Each issue of Oriental Stories was 144 pages, and priced at 25 cents (equivalent to $4.60 in 2023). The page count dropped to 128 pages when the title changed to The Magic Carpet Magazine, and the price dropped to 15 cents; with the October 1933 issue the price went back up to 25 cents. The volume numbering was irregular; the first three volumes had six, three, and four issues, and there was a final volume of one issue. Oriental Stories maintained a bimonthly schedule for three issues, and then switched to quarterly; there was a three-month hiatus when the title changed, and then The Magic Carpet Magazine stayed on a quarterly schedule throughout its run.[7][15]
Two anthologies collected fiction from Oriental Stories and The Magic Carpet Magazine:[7]
Desmond, William (1975). Oriental Stories: Fascinating Tales of the East. Melrose Highlands, Massachusetts: Odyssey Publications. OCLC56125660.
Desmond, William (1977). The Magic Carpet Magazine. Melrose Highlands, Massachusetts: Odyssey Publications. OCLC56128169.
Burke, Rusty (2007). "A Short Biography of Robert E. Howard". The Best of Robert E. Howard, Volume One: Crimson Shadows. New York: Del Rey Books. pp.485–496. ISBN978-0-345-49018-6.
Cottrill, Tim (2001). Bookery Fantasy's Ultimate Guide to the Pulps. Fairborn, Ohio: Bookery Press. OCLC49312554.
Howard, Robert E. (January 1934). "The Shadow of the Vulture". The Magic Carpet Magazine. Vol.4, no.1. pp.39–65. Retrieved January 12, 2025.
Hulse, Ed (2013). The Blood'n'Thunder Guide to Pulp Fiction. Murania Press. ISBN978-1491010938.
Locke, John (2018). The Thing's Incredible! The Secret Origins of Weird Tales. Elkhorn, California: Off-Trail Publications. ISBN978-1-935-03125-3.
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 to list Wright as editor 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.
Argosy was an American magazine, founded in 1882 as The Golden Argosy, a children's weekly, edited by Frank Munsey and published by E. G. Rideout. Munsey took over as publisher when Rideout went bankrupt in 1883, and after many struggles made the magazine profitable. He shortened the title to The Argosy in 1888 and targeted an audience of men and boys with adventure stories. In 1894 he switched it to a monthly schedule and in 1896 he eliminated all non-fiction and started using cheap pulp paper, making it the first pulp magazine. Circulation had reached half a million by 1907, and remained strong until the 1930s. The name was changed to Argosy All-Story Weekly in 1920 after the magazine merged with All-Story Weekly, another Munsey pulp, and from 1929 it became just Argosy.
Farnsworth Wright was the editor of the pulp magazine Weird Tales during the magazine's heyday, editing 179 issues from November 1924 to March 1940. Jack Williamson called Wright "the first great fantasy editor".
Fantastic Universe was a U.S. science fiction magazine which began publishing in the 1950s. It ran for 69 issues, from June 1953 to March 1960, under two different publishers. It was part of the explosion of science fiction magazine publishing in the 1950s in the United States, and was moderately successful, outlasting almost all of its competitors. The main editors were Leo Margulies (1954–1956) and Hans Stefan Santesson (1956–1960).
Uncanny Tales was a Canadian science fiction pulp magazine edited by Melvin R. Colby that ran from November 1940 to September 1943. It was created in response to the wartime reduction of imports on British and American science-fiction pulp magazines. Initially it contained stories only from Canadian authors, with much of its contents supplied by Thomas P. Kelley, but within a few issues Colby began to obtain reprint rights to American stories from Donald A. Wollheim and Sam Moskowitz. Wollheim's and Moskowitz's later accounts of the relationship with Colby differ. Moskowitz reported that he found out via an acquaintance of Wollheim's that Colby had been persuaded by Wollheim to stop buying Moskowitz's submissions. Paper shortages forced the magazine to shut down after less than three years. It is now extremely rare.
Avon published three related magazines in the late 1940s and early 1950s, titled Avon Fantasy Reader, Avon Science Fiction Reader, and Avon Science Fiction and Fantasy Reader. These were digest size magazines which reprinted science fiction and fantasy literature by now well-known authors. They were edited by Donald A. Wollheim and published by Avon.
The All-Story Magazine was a pulp magazine founded in 1905 and published by Frank Munsey. The editor was Robert H. Davis; Thomas Newell Metcalf also worked as a managing editor for the magazine. It was published monthly until March 1914, and then switched to a weekly schedule. Munsey merged it with TheCavalier, another of his pulp magazines, in May 1914, and the title changed to All-Story Cavalier Weekly for a year. In 1920 it was merged with Munsey's Argosy; the combined magazine was retitled Argosy All-Story Weekly.
Amazing Stories Annual was a pulp magazine which published a single issue in July 1927. It was edited by Hugo Gernsback, and featured the first publication of The Master Mind of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs, which had been rejected by several other magazines, perhaps because the plot included a satire on religious fundamentalism. The other stories in Amazing Stories Annual were reprints, including two stories by A. Merritt, and one by H.G. Wells. The magazine sold out, and its success led Gernsback to launch Amazing Stories Quarterly the following year.
The Shadow was an American pulp magazine that was published by Street & Smith from 1931 to 1949. Each issue contained a novel about the Shadow, a mysterious crime-fighting figure who had been invented to narrate the introductions to radio broadcasts of stories from Street & Smith's Detective Story Magazine. A line from the introduction, "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows", prompted listeners to ask at newsstands for the "Shadow magazine", which convinced the publisher that a magazine based around a single character could be successful. Walter Gibson persuaded the magazine's editor, Frank Blackwell, to let him write the first novel, The Living Shadow, which appeared in the first issue, dated April 1931.
Doc Savage was an American pulp magazine that was published from 1933 to 1949 by Street & Smith. It was launched as a follow-up to the success of The Shadow, a magazine Street & Smith had started in 1931, based around a single character. Doc Savage's lead character, Clark Savage, was a scientist and adventurer, rather than purely a detective. Lester Dent was hired to write the lead novels, almost all of which were published under the house name "Kenneth Robeson". A few dozen novels were ghost-written by other writers, hired either by Dent or by Street & Smith. The magazine was successful, but was shut down in 1949 as part of Street & Smith's decision to abandon the pulp magazine field completely.
Ka-Zar was an American pulp magazine that published three issues in 1936 and 1937, edited by Martin Goodman. The lead character was modeled after Tarzan and the lead novel and short stories in each issue were adventures set in the jungle.
War Birds was a pulp magazine published by Dell from 1928 to 1937. It was the first pulp to focus on stories of war in the air, and soon had competitors. A series featuring fictional Irishman Terence X. O'Leary, which had started in other magazines, began to feature in War Birds in 1933, and in 1935 the magazine changed its name to Terence X. O'Leary's War Birds for three issues. In these issues the setting for stories about O'Leary changed from World War I to the near future; when the title changed back to War Birds later that year, the fiction reverted to ordinary aviation war stories for its last nine issues, including one final O'Leary story. The magazine's editors included Harry Steeger and Carson W. Mowre.
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.
Ace Mystery was a weird menace pulp magazine which published three issues starting in 1936, followed by two more under the title Detective Romances.
Dime Mystery Magazine was an American pulp magazine published from 1932 to 1950 by Popular Publications. Titled Dime Mystery Book Magazine during its first nine months, it contained ordinary mystery stories, including a full-length novel in each issue, but it was competing with Detective Novels Magazine and Detective Classics, two established magazines from a rival publisher, and failed to sell well. With the October 1933 issue the editorial policy changed, and it began publishing horror stories. Under the new policy, each story's protagonist had to struggle against something that appeared to be supernatural, but would eventually be revealed to have an everyday explanation. The new genre became known as "weird menace" fiction; the publisher, Harry Steeger, was inspired to create the new policy by the gory dramatizations he had seen at the Grand Guignol theater in Paris. Stories based on supernatural events were rare in Dime Mystery, but did occasionally appear.
The Western Raider was an American pulp magazine. The first issue was dated August/September 1938; it was followed by two more issues under that title, publishing Western fiction, and then was changed to a crime fiction pulp for two issues, titled The Octopus and The Scorpion. Both these two issues were named after a supervillain, rather than after a hero who fights crime, as was the case with most such magazines. Norvell Page wrote the lead novels for both the crime fiction issues; the second was rewritten by Ejler Jakobsson, one of the editors, to change the character from The Octopus to The Scorpion.
Thrilling Mystery was an American pulp magazine published from 1935 to 1944. New York publisher Standard Magazines had a stable of magazines with the "Thrilling" prefix, including Thrilling Detective, Thrilling Love, and Thrilling Adventures, but in 1935, Popular Publications, a rival publisher, launched a weird menace pulp titled Thrilling Mysteries. Standard Magazines sued over the use of the word "Thrilling", and Popular conceded, settling out of court. Thrilling Mysteries was cancelled after a single issue, and in October 1935 Standard began Thrilling Mystery. Like Thrilling Mysteries this was a terror pulp, but it contained less sex and violence than most of the genre, and as a result, in the opinion of science fiction historian Mike Ashley, "the stories had greater originality, although they are not necessarily of better quality". Ashley singles out Carl Jacobi's "Satan's Kite", about a family cursed because of a theft from a temple in Borneo, as worthy of mention. There were two detective stories by Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan. Other contributors included Fritz Leiber, Fredric Brown, Seabury Quinn, Robert Bloch, and Henry Kuttner. There was little science fiction in the magazine, but some fantasy: pulp historian Robert K. Jones cites Arthur J. Burks "Devils in the Dust" as "one of the most effective" stories, with "a mood as bleak as an arctic blizzard", and Ashley agrees, calling it "particularly powerful".
Battle Birds was an American air-war pulp magazine published by Popular Publications from 1932 to 1935 and from 1940 to 1944.
Fantasy Book was an American fantasy magazine that was published from 1981 to 1987. The publisher, Dennis Mallonee, declared in the first issue, dated October 1981, that the magazine would include all types of fantasy: "High fantasy, light fantasy, heroic fantasy, horror stories, mystery stories, fairy stories, legends, fables, poems". Science fiction historian Mike Ashley suggests that the first issue, with a humorous cover showing a man shaking hands with a dragon in a sweatshirt, was positioning itself as a successor to Unknown, a highly regarded fantasy pulp magazine from forty years earlier. A variety of stories appeared in the first few issues: Ashley lists Al Sarrantonio's "The Return of Mad Santa", about a world in which Santa Claus has an evil side that occasionally breaks through, as a typical Unknown fantasy, and stories by C. Bruce Hunter, David Kaufman, and Eric G. Iverson as typically of other predecessor fantasy magazines—Weird Tales, Beyond Fantasy Fiction, or a literary fantasy magazine. Science fiction did occasionally appear, such as Lil and Kris Neville's story "Milk into Brandy". It also carried reprints of classic fantasies.
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.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
