Hello again and welcome to my page about the brief history of pulp magazines.
The history of pulp fiction can be traced back to an earlier form called Dime novels. These were printed on thin cheap paper and bound by a paper cover. Their inexpensive materials allowed them to be printed cheaply, quickly, and also sell for a low cost of usually only a dime; sometimes they were only five cents. Publishers learned that by adding volume numbers to the books they would be treated as periodicals. This allowed them to be sold through the mail at a reduced rate. These early dime novels were quickly written and produced and often contained stories of adventurous heroes that appealed to the common person (Newberry, 2016).
The first dime novel was published in June of 1860 by Ann S. Stephens. The title of the story is Malaeska; the Indian Wife of the White Hunter (Lamb, 2016). It was published by Erastus and Irwin Beadle. The publisher’s dime novels came to be known as Beadle's Dime Novels. The story tells the tale of an Indian women who marries a white man. Within a few months over 65,000 copies of the book was sold. The book was sold for a dime and originally had an orange cover with an illustrated text for the words Dime Novel. However, due to such sales number of the first run a second printing was issued. However, this edition was different, because it had a dramatic cover illustrated by the character Malaeska in dark skin wearing a feathered headdress holding her dying white husband. These dramatic covers became a standard for future dime novel (Zimmerman, 1997).
The first big successful character under Beadle’s Dime Novels was Seth Jones, a frontiersman from New Hampshire. This character was a favorite of future president Abraham Lincoln. With the success of this character Beadle publishing began churning out a different dime novel every two weeks and about a year later they were publishing a dime novel per week. During the Civil War the dime novel was a favorite item for soldiers on both sides of the war. In 1862 Beadle publishing opened a new office up in England. These books became a huge hit among the English people and were called Shilling Shockers and Penny Dreadfuls (Zimmerman, 1997).
Of course with the success of Beadle’s Dime Novels other publishers were eager to get in the Dime Novel Game. Publishers Street and Smith began publishing stories by Edward Judson under the pen name Ned Buntline about a rough and tumble cowboy named William Cody or better known as Buffalo Bill. These semi-true stories told the adventurous of Bill as he traveled the Wild West frontier were hugely popular. After Judson died Colonel Prentiss Ingraham continued to tell tales of the cowboy (Zimmerman, 1997).
As the end of the century was approaching dime novel subjects had expanded into detective, adventure, and romance stories. With improvements in printing some of the black and white covers were replaced with color illustrations. An early example of color dime novel cover printing is the Squaw Man’s Revenge in 1910 written by Colonel Spencer Dair and published in American Indian Weekly by Arthur Westbrook (Zimmerman, 1997).
However, after almost 50 years of successful publications the dime novels began to lose popularity to modern technology like the nickelodeons in 1905 that provided a 10 minute silent movie for only 5 cents. Another factor was the post office raised its rates and this was cutting into the profits of the dime novel publishers. But, not all was lost, because on the horizon were the Pulp Novels (Zimmerman, 1997).
The start of pulp magazines is around 1896. They were called pulp because of the cheap wood pulp used to produce these magazines. They were known in the early days to yellow quickly and tear easily. However, like the dime novels they cost only 10 or 5 cents. Later issues went as high as 25 cents. Early on what distinguished them from dime novels is their serial story style. A dime novel would have a complete story in each issue, however pulp magazines ran serial stories in each issue and sometimes the story was continued into the next issue. This story type was reminiscent of the movie serials shown before feature films in the early days of movies. Later this format changed to include full stories depending on the size of the story. What also distinguished them from the dime novels was the size. The first pulp magazines were 10X7 inches, however in order to compete with magazines on the newsstands they increased the size to 11X8 (Belk, 2016).
Pulp magazines shared several attributes with dime novels. Both featured sensational stories with lots of action featuring a hero conquering over evil. The wonderful cover art work also continued with pulp magazines. However, where dime novels did not regularly have interior art work the pulp magazines did. Also, pulp magazines branched out further beyond the cowboy and adventure stories. They included much more detective, war, comedy, adventure, horror, science fiction, romance, and costumed heroes stories. Their stories were also more lurid, gritty, and sexual (Belk, 2016).
One of the earliest pulps was called The Argosy in 1896. The magazine started in 1882 as The Golden Argosy. It was a dime novel telling adventure stories for boys. Then in 1889 the publication shifted away from the dime novel stories to become well-rounded with articles and advertisements. However, in 1896 the Argosy had dropped the article format and its advertisements and only printed short pulp stories. This was a good plan, because by 1907 it was selling half a million copies per month (Belk, 2016).
Of course, the success of this magazine attracted other publishers to join in. Frank A. Munsey’s publishing company started a pulp magazine in 1905 called All-Story. Dime novel publishers Street & Smith saw that the pulp format was very popular so they changed their dime novel formats. In 1905 Street & Smith’s newly redesigned publication The Popular Magazine brought in some big names to write stories (Belk, 2016). One the best is H.G. Wells and his stories War of the Worlds and the Invisible Man (Chomko, 2016). Other famous writers and stories in the pulps are Edgar Rice Burroughs stories Tarzan & A Princess of Mars and Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man & The Maltese Falcon ; Ray Bradbury’s story The Fireman and The Martian Chronicles (Enns, 2015).
A common trait of the pulp publishers was to create different pulp magazines based on different genres. There were detective and mystery pulps like Black Mask, Clues, Dime Mystery; costumed hero genres like the Shadow, Spider, The Phantom Detective and Flash Gordon. Horror and Science Fiction was a very popular with titles like the Black Cat, Horror Stories, Thrilling Mysteries, Terror Tales on the horror end and Weird Tales, Amazing Stories, and Astounding within the realm of science fiction. The cowboy and romance had titles such Western Story Magazine, Love Story Magazine, and Ranch Romances. The adult readers were targeted with more risqué stories in magazines such as Spicy Detective Stories, Spicy Adventures, Spicy Mystery, Spicy Westerns and other titles. To add to the lure of these more adult titles was that some of them were only available behind the newsstand desk (Belk, 2016).
The popularity of the pulps found its way onto radio. Shows like The Shadow, and Inner Sanctum Mysteries had a pulp magazine companion to their own radio dramatization. Old Time Radio (OTR) shows like Suspense, Witch's Tale, X-Minus One, and Dimension X used scripts from pulp magazines, especially detective and science fiction pulps to tell their stories. In the late 1940s and early 1950s Street & Smith publishers were a favorite for science fiction tales that found their way onto radio.
By the mid-1950s the pulp magazine had disappeared from newsstands. The taste of the public had shifted and with more options like movies and television the pulps were no longer popular. In some ways comic books have continued on the tradition of the dime novels and the pulp magazines with over the top adventure stories in a variety of genres mixed with graphic art. Like the dime novels before them pulp magazines were not considered high literature or art. However, they were still very popular in their hey-day and the passing of time has shown that these stories and the art work have stood the test of time to be appreciated by young and old alike. Some of the stories and art work have been reprinted in book format. There is also a nice pulp magazine fan presence on the internet.
Thank You for taking time to read my brief history of pulp magazines. There is a sampling of beautiful pulp magazine cover art grouped together by similar genres in the tab section of this website. There is also a tab for my cited sources.
Robert Bussie. 2016.
The history of pulp fiction can be traced back to an earlier form called Dime novels. These were printed on thin cheap paper and bound by a paper cover. Their inexpensive materials allowed them to be printed cheaply, quickly, and also sell for a low cost of usually only a dime; sometimes they were only five cents. Publishers learned that by adding volume numbers to the books they would be treated as periodicals. This allowed them to be sold through the mail at a reduced rate. These early dime novels were quickly written and produced and often contained stories of adventurous heroes that appealed to the common person (Newberry, 2016).
The first dime novel was published in June of 1860 by Ann S. Stephens. The title of the story is Malaeska; the Indian Wife of the White Hunter (Lamb, 2016). It was published by Erastus and Irwin Beadle. The publisher’s dime novels came to be known as Beadle's Dime Novels. The story tells the tale of an Indian women who marries a white man. Within a few months over 65,000 copies of the book was sold. The book was sold for a dime and originally had an orange cover with an illustrated text for the words Dime Novel. However, due to such sales number of the first run a second printing was issued. However, this edition was different, because it had a dramatic cover illustrated by the character Malaeska in dark skin wearing a feathered headdress holding her dying white husband. These dramatic covers became a standard for future dime novel (Zimmerman, 1997).
The first big successful character under Beadle’s Dime Novels was Seth Jones, a frontiersman from New Hampshire. This character was a favorite of future president Abraham Lincoln. With the success of this character Beadle publishing began churning out a different dime novel every two weeks and about a year later they were publishing a dime novel per week. During the Civil War the dime novel was a favorite item for soldiers on both sides of the war. In 1862 Beadle publishing opened a new office up in England. These books became a huge hit among the English people and were called Shilling Shockers and Penny Dreadfuls (Zimmerman, 1997).
Of course with the success of Beadle’s Dime Novels other publishers were eager to get in the Dime Novel Game. Publishers Street and Smith began publishing stories by Edward Judson under the pen name Ned Buntline about a rough and tumble cowboy named William Cody or better known as Buffalo Bill. These semi-true stories told the adventurous of Bill as he traveled the Wild West frontier were hugely popular. After Judson died Colonel Prentiss Ingraham continued to tell tales of the cowboy (Zimmerman, 1997).
As the end of the century was approaching dime novel subjects had expanded into detective, adventure, and romance stories. With improvements in printing some of the black and white covers were replaced with color illustrations. An early example of color dime novel cover printing is the Squaw Man’s Revenge in 1910 written by Colonel Spencer Dair and published in American Indian Weekly by Arthur Westbrook (Zimmerman, 1997).
However, after almost 50 years of successful publications the dime novels began to lose popularity to modern technology like the nickelodeons in 1905 that provided a 10 minute silent movie for only 5 cents. Another factor was the post office raised its rates and this was cutting into the profits of the dime novel publishers. But, not all was lost, because on the horizon were the Pulp Novels (Zimmerman, 1997).
The start of pulp magazines is around 1896. They were called pulp because of the cheap wood pulp used to produce these magazines. They were known in the early days to yellow quickly and tear easily. However, like the dime novels they cost only 10 or 5 cents. Later issues went as high as 25 cents. Early on what distinguished them from dime novels is their serial story style. A dime novel would have a complete story in each issue, however pulp magazines ran serial stories in each issue and sometimes the story was continued into the next issue. This story type was reminiscent of the movie serials shown before feature films in the early days of movies. Later this format changed to include full stories depending on the size of the story. What also distinguished them from the dime novels was the size. The first pulp magazines were 10X7 inches, however in order to compete with magazines on the newsstands they increased the size to 11X8 (Belk, 2016).
Pulp magazines shared several attributes with dime novels. Both featured sensational stories with lots of action featuring a hero conquering over evil. The wonderful cover art work also continued with pulp magazines. However, where dime novels did not regularly have interior art work the pulp magazines did. Also, pulp magazines branched out further beyond the cowboy and adventure stories. They included much more detective, war, comedy, adventure, horror, science fiction, romance, and costumed heroes stories. Their stories were also more lurid, gritty, and sexual (Belk, 2016).
One of the earliest pulps was called The Argosy in 1896. The magazine started in 1882 as The Golden Argosy. It was a dime novel telling adventure stories for boys. Then in 1889 the publication shifted away from the dime novel stories to become well-rounded with articles and advertisements. However, in 1896 the Argosy had dropped the article format and its advertisements and only printed short pulp stories. This was a good plan, because by 1907 it was selling half a million copies per month (Belk, 2016).
Of course, the success of this magazine attracted other publishers to join in. Frank A. Munsey’s publishing company started a pulp magazine in 1905 called All-Story. Dime novel publishers Street & Smith saw that the pulp format was very popular so they changed their dime novel formats. In 1905 Street & Smith’s newly redesigned publication The Popular Magazine brought in some big names to write stories (Belk, 2016). One the best is H.G. Wells and his stories War of the Worlds and the Invisible Man (Chomko, 2016). Other famous writers and stories in the pulps are Edgar Rice Burroughs stories Tarzan & A Princess of Mars and Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man & The Maltese Falcon ; Ray Bradbury’s story The Fireman and The Martian Chronicles (Enns, 2015).
A common trait of the pulp publishers was to create different pulp magazines based on different genres. There were detective and mystery pulps like Black Mask, Clues, Dime Mystery; costumed hero genres like the Shadow, Spider, The Phantom Detective and Flash Gordon. Horror and Science Fiction was a very popular with titles like the Black Cat, Horror Stories, Thrilling Mysteries, Terror Tales on the horror end and Weird Tales, Amazing Stories, and Astounding within the realm of science fiction. The cowboy and romance had titles such Western Story Magazine, Love Story Magazine, and Ranch Romances. The adult readers were targeted with more risqué stories in magazines such as Spicy Detective Stories, Spicy Adventures, Spicy Mystery, Spicy Westerns and other titles. To add to the lure of these more adult titles was that some of them were only available behind the newsstand desk (Belk, 2016).
The popularity of the pulps found its way onto radio. Shows like The Shadow, and Inner Sanctum Mysteries had a pulp magazine companion to their own radio dramatization. Old Time Radio (OTR) shows like Suspense, Witch's Tale, X-Minus One, and Dimension X used scripts from pulp magazines, especially detective and science fiction pulps to tell their stories. In the late 1940s and early 1950s Street & Smith publishers were a favorite for science fiction tales that found their way onto radio.
By the mid-1950s the pulp magazine had disappeared from newsstands. The taste of the public had shifted and with more options like movies and television the pulps were no longer popular. In some ways comic books have continued on the tradition of the dime novels and the pulp magazines with over the top adventure stories in a variety of genres mixed with graphic art. Like the dime novels before them pulp magazines were not considered high literature or art. However, they were still very popular in their hey-day and the passing of time has shown that these stories and the art work have stood the test of time to be appreciated by young and old alike. Some of the stories and art work have been reprinted in book format. There is also a nice pulp magazine fan presence on the internet.
Thank You for taking time to read my brief history of pulp magazines. There is a sampling of beautiful pulp magazine cover art grouped together by similar genres in the tab section of this website. There is also a tab for my cited sources.
Robert Bussie. 2016.