 Cover of the July 1955 issue | |
| Categories | Women's magazine |
|---|---|
| Frequency | Monthly |
| Founded | 1922 |
| Company | True Renditions LLC |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Website | www |
| ISSN | 0041-3488 |
True Confessions is a confession magazine targeted at young women readers. It was originally published by Fawcett Publications, beginning in 1922.
Building on the success of Captain Billy's Whiz Bang magazine, Fawcett Publications published the first issue of True Confessions in August 1922. [1] With a cover price of 25 cents, the front cover of the October, 1922, issue heralded, "Our Thousand Dollar Prize Winner—'All Hell Broke Loose'." During the 1920s, Jack Smalley was the editor, and early issues in the run sometimes featured cover illustrations by Norman Saunders.
Directed at a female readership between the ages of 20 and 35, the magazine climbed to a circulation of two million during the 1930s, carrying such articles as "The Romantic Story of Jack Dempsey's Cinderella Bride." With True Confessions Fawcett was in competition with rival publishers Macfadden (True Story, True Romance, Experiences) and Hillman Periodicals (Real Story, Real Confessions, Real Romances, Crime Confessions). In 1945, Fawcett learned that 72% of the women who read True Confessions were married, just one piece of information gleaned after Fawcett spent $50,000 for a year-long survey involving 600 questions asked of True Confessions readers in Dayton, Ohio (chosen after the Census Bureau named it a typical wartime United States city). [2]
By 1949, these old-style confession magazines faced a setback in the midst of a new comic book trend, over 100 love and romance titles from two dozen companies, with press runs averaging 500,000. Macfadden reported a loss in the second quarter of 1949, while Fawcett profited with its new romance comics, reaching a million readers with Sweethearts and 700,000 with Life Story.
During the 1950s, when True Confessions was priced at 15 cents, the editor was Florence J. Schetty. The contents of the March, 1959, issue, edited by Schetty and priced at 25 cents, provided insight into the magazine's approach during that period. It included "God Is My Guide" by Clint Walker, "Hairdos You Can Do Yourself" by Grace A. Hufner, " "When a Girl Goes to Prison" by Jules Archer, "I Couldn’t Forgive My Brother-in-Law" by Anonymous and "Let’s Enjoy Breakfast" by Erva Jean Vosburgh. Another editor in the field was Clark Dimond, who edited True Experience for Macfadden-Bartell during the 1960s.
Some articles for True Confessions were condensed for republication in Reader's Digest , and Fawcett launched its Gold Medal Books paperback line in 1949 with anthologies of material from True (The Best of True Magazine) and True Confessions (What Today's Woman Should Know About Marriage and Sex).
Macfadden-Bartell purchased the magazine in 1963. Macfadden spun off its romance and teen magazines as a separate company in 1992, which then merged with Sterling publication to form Sterling/Macfadden. [3] Dorchester Media bought Sterling/Macfadden in 2004. In 2006, Dorchester teamed with Leisure Entertainment to launch a series of paperback anthologies titled True Confessions, True Romance and True Story. [4] [5] In 2012, Dorchester Media sold True Confessions and True Story magazines to True Renditions LLC. [6]
Charlton Comics was an American comic-book publishing company that existed from 1945 to 1986, having begun under a different name: T. W. O. Charles Company, in 1940. It was based in Derby, Connecticut. The comic-book line was a division of Charlton Publications, which published magazines, puzzle books, and briefly, books. It had its own distribution company.
A paperback book is one with a thick paper or paperboard cover, and often held together with glue rather than stitches or staples. In contrast, hardcover (hardback) books are bound with cardboard covered with cloth, leather, paper, or plastic.
Fawcett Comics, a division of Fawcett Publications, was one of several successful comic book publishers during the Golden Age of Comic Books in the 1940s. Its most popular character was Captain Marvel, the alter ego of radio reporter Billy Batson, who transformed into the hero whenever he said the magic word "Shazam!".
Frederick Orlin Tremaine was an American science fiction magazine editor, most notably of the influential Astounding Stories. He edited a number of other magazines, headed several publishing companies, and sporadically wrote fiction.
Fawcett Publications was an American publishing company founded in 1919 in Robbinsdale, Minnesota by Wilford Hamilton "Captain Billy" Fawcett (1885–1940).
Gold Medal Books, launched by Fawcett Publications in 1950, was an American book publisher known for introducing paperback originals, a publishing innovation at the time. Fawcett was also an independent newsstand distributor, and in 1949 the company negotiated a contract with New American Library to distribute their Mentor and Signet titles. This contract prohibited Fawcett from publishing their own paperback reprints.
Bernarr Macfadden was an American proponent of physical culture, a combination of bodybuilding with nutritional and health theories. He founded the long-running magazine publishing company Macfadden Publications.
Pageant was a 20th-century monthly magazine published in the United States from November 1944 until February 1977. Printed in a digest size format, it became Coronet magazine's leading competition, although it aimed for comparison to Reader's Digest.
True, also known as True, The Man's Magazine, was published by Fawcett Publications from 1937 until 1974. Known as True, A Man's Magazine in the 1930s, it was labeled True, #1 Man's Magazine in the 1960s. Petersen Publishing took over with the January 1975, issue. It was sold to Magazine Associates in August 1975, and ceased publication shortly afterward.
Lancer Books was a publisher of paperback books founded by Irwin Stein and Walter Zacharius that operated from 1961 through 1973. While it published stories of a number of genres, it was noted most for its science fiction and fantasy, particularly its series of Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian tales, the first publication of many in paperback format. It published the controversial novel Candy by Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg, and Ted Mark's ribald series The Man from O.R.G.Y. Lancer paperbacks had a distinctive appearance, many bearing mauve or green page edging.
Hillman Periodicals, Inc., was an American magazine and comic book publishing company founded in 1938 by Alex L. Hillman, a former New York City book publisher. It is best known for its true confession and true crime magazines; for the long-running general-interest magazine Pageant; and for comic books including Air Fighters Comics and its successor Airboy Comics, which launched the popular characters Airboy and The Heap.
Dorchester Publishing was a publisher of mass market paperback books. Although mostly known for romance, Dorchester also published horror, thriller and Western titles.
Charles Fulton Oursler Sr. was an American journalist, playwright, editor and writer. Writing as Anthony Abbot, he was an author of mysteries and detective fiction. His son was the journalist and author Will Oursler (1913–1985).
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True Story is an American magazine published by True Renditions, LLC. It launched in 1919 and was the first of the confessions magazines genre. It carried the subtitle Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction.
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.
I Confess was an American biweekly pulp magazine aimed at young women readers that was published between 1922 and 1932 by Dell Publishing. The magazine contained stories that were marketed as being true first-person accounts of mostly middle-class women’s lives and scandals told in a confessional style, which was different from many other pulp magazines which were mainly marketed as cheap fictional magazines. It was the first magazine and title ever published by Dell, and its popularity helped launch over 700 magazine titles, making Dell Publishing the successful publishing house that it remains today.
The Bartell Group, later known as Bartell Broadcasters, Bartell Family Radio, Macfadden-Bartell, and the Bartell Media Corporation, was a family-owned company that owned a number of radio stations in the United States during the 1940s through the 1960s.
Emile Gauvreau (1891-1956) was an American journalist, newspaper and magazine editor and author of novels and nonfiction books. He is best known as editor of two of New York's entertainment and sensation oriented "jazz age" tabloid newspapers.
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