Magazine
SPACE SCIENCE FICTION. (Eight issues, all published).
New York: Space Publications Inc., 1952-1953. Small octavo, eight issues, pictorial wrappers. Digest magazine. Another short lived, but quality, magazine of the 1950s boomlet, done in by disagreement between the editor and publisher (which terminated all of the publishers fanstasy and science fiction magazines). Authors include Isaac Asimov, Henry Kuttner, Clifford Simak, Michael Shaara, Lester Del Rey (including pseudonyms), John Christopher, Damon Knight, Philip K. Dick, Robert Sheckley and others. Highlights include the first publication of the first of the newly discovered Conan stories which surfaced starting in the 1950s. This publication interestedly includes a short note by the editor of the story, L. Sprague De Camp, about the discovery of the story from unsold Howard manuscripts. De Camp also includes the transcript of a note which was attached to the manuscript by H. P. Lovecraft. Other notables include the publication of Algis Budrys first published story "Walk to the World" and two Philip K. Dick fictions, "Second Variety" and "The Variable Man." Tymm and Ashley, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Weird Fiction Magazines, pp. 585-586.
ST. NICHOLAS.
New York: Scribner & Company, London: Frederick Warne, 1880. Octavo, single issue, pictorial wrappers. First edition. The 1880 Christmas issue of this long running children's magazine. This issue includes "A Christmas Dinner With the Man in the Moon" by Washington Gladden (with illustrations). Though clearly a fantasy story being told to children the author does include mention of the need for respirators for breathing on the moon.
STAR SCIENCE FICTION. (all published).
Derby, CT: Ballantine Magazines Inc., 1958. Small octavo, cover by Richard Powers, pictorial wrappers. Digest magazine. First and only issue. This was an attempt by Ballantine to conver the Star SF anthology book series into a magazine. Good quality stories by Algis Budrys writing as "John Sentry," Chan Davis, Poul Anderson, Isaac Asimov, Robert Bloch, Gavin Hyde and in his first American magazine appearance, Brian Aldiss with "Judas Dancing," a story often reprinted (as "Judas Danced"). Tymm and Ashley, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Weird Fiction Magazines, pp. 604-606.
STARTLING MYSTERY STORIES. (Eighteen issues, all published).
New York: Health Knowledge Inc., 1966-1971. Octavo, eighteen issues, pictorial wrappers. Digest size magazine. This publication included new and reprint fiction. Reprints coming mainly from the pulps, including Seabury Quinn's Jules de Grandin stories, Paul Ernst's Dr. Satan, and Edward Hoch's Simon Ark stories. As for new material, a claim to fame is the publication of Stephen King's first two stories "The Glass Floor" in issue number 6 and "The Reaper's Image," in issue number 12. Other new fiction included authors Ramsey Campbell, John Brunner, and F. Paul Wilson with his first professional appearance. Lowndes editorials were also of interest as he covered subjects in the detective fiction genre. Tymm and Ashley, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Weird Fiction Magazines, pp. 608-611.
STRANGE ADVENTURES. (Two issues, all published)
London: Hamilton & Co. (Stafford) Ltd, n.d., [c. 1946-1947]. Large octavo, two issues, pictorial wrappers. Magazine size. The only two issues of this British SF magazine, the first venture by Hamiltion into the field. Most of the fiction is by N. Wesley Firth. The first issue has three stories, the second is one compete story. Tymn and Ashley (eds), Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Weird Fiction Magazines, pp. 620-21.
STRANGE TALES [SECOND SELECTION].
London: Utopian Publications Ltd., n.d., [1946]. Small octavo, single issue, cover illustration by Alva Rogers, pictorial wrappers, stapled. The second of two issues published. Most of the stories were reprinted from WEIRD TALES. Fiction by John Beynon Harris, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Bloch (two tales, one as Bloch, the other as "Tarleton Fiske"), H. P. Lovecraft ("Cool Air") and others. Locke, A Spectrum of Fantasy, Volume 1, p. 3. Parnell, Monthly Terrors, p. 202. Tymn and Ashley (eds), Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Weird Fiction Magazines, pp. 625-26. Tuck (1982), p. 596.
STRANGE TALES [FIRST SELECTION].
London: Utopian Publications Ltd., n.d., [1946]. Small octavo, single issue, cover by H.W. Perl, pictorial wrappers, stapled. This the variant cover by Perl. The first of two issues published. Most of the stories were reprinted from WEIRD TALES. Fiction by Jack Williamson, Robert Bloch (as "Tarleton Fiske"), Clark Ashton Smith, Ray Bradbury and others. This was allegedly Bradbury's first U.K. magazine appearance. Locke, A Spectrum of Fantasy, Volume 1, p. 3. Parnell, Monthly Terrors, p. 202. Tymn and Ashley (eds), Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Weird Fiction Magazines, pp. 625-26. Tuck (1982), p. 596.
SUSPECT DETECTIVE STORIES.
New York: Royal Publications, Inc., 1955. Small octavo, single issue, cover by Robert Engle, pictorial wrappers. Digest sized magazine. The first of only five issues published. Another of the 1950s short lived mystery/detective digests. Cook, Mystery, Detective and Espionage Magazines, pp. 548-549.
SUSPENSE: THE MYSTERY MAGAZINE.
Los Angeles, CA: Suspense Magazine, Inc., 1946-47. Small octavo, three issues, pictorial wrappers. Digest sized magazine. The first magazine tie-in to the CBS radio drama series. Adaptation of the the radio scripts into magazine story format. This is three of the four issue published. Cook, Mystery, Detective and Espionage Magazines, p. 555.
TALES OF THE FRIGHTENED. (Two issues, all published).
New York: Republic Features Syndicate, Inc., 1956. Small octavo, two issues, pictorial and printed wrappers. Digest magazine. The only two issues of this short lived magazine. Each issue contained all original stories with authors Michael Avallone, James Harvey, John Jakes, John Wyndham, John Christopher, Hal Ellson, A. Bertram Chandler, Mack Reynolds and others. "...clearly the very magazine that a nation of Weird Tales denied readers had been waiting for." - Cook, Mystery, Detective and Espionage Magazines, pp. 557-558. Sales were good but the pending demise of the mammoth distributing firm American News Company put them out of business. Tymm and Ashley, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Weird Fiction Magazines, pp. 649-650.
TALES OF THE SEA.
New York: Ziff-Davis Publishing Company, 1953. Small octavo, cover by Clarence Doore, pictorial wrappers. Digest sized magazine. The first and only issue with fiction by John Russell, Steve Frazee, Jack London and others.
THE ILLUSTRATED DETECTIVE MAGAZINE.
Jamaica, NY: Tower Magazine Incorporated, 1929. Large octavo, single issue, pictorial wrappers. "Murder House" by Will Levinrew. Also a Craig Kennedy story by Arthur B. Reeve. A large format, densely illustrated, bedsheet-sized pulp. "The fiction emphasized the woman's point of view, was often narrated by a woman, and featured as many feminine as masculine detectives. In the rear of the magazine flowered all the usual departments of a more conventional woman's publication ... That this magazine would publish much fiction of interest seems improbable. But without effort, it contrived to be superb. ILLUSTRATED DETECTIVE selected outstanding writers who had made their mark in the 1920s and mingled these with rising writers of the 1930s. Over the years, the magazine would publish work by top names in the mystery field, including Ellery Queen, Stuart Palmer, Sax Rohmer, Arnold Kummer, Hulbert Footner, Vincent Starrett and H. Bedford-Jones. The fiction was polished, often strongly compressed, and good enough for a large amount of it to appear later between book covers. The magazine appeared monthly for almost six years, sixty-nine issues, at ten cents a copy. After three years, the title was changed to THE MYSTERY MAGAZINE ... Covers were tasteful, bright, and uneventful, relying heavily on the faces of self-confident women. Inside was an astonishing amount of material: eight to ten pieces of fiction, four or more crime-fact articles, and up to ten continuing departments (about half of these slanted directly toward women). When the magazine was at its peak in the early 1930s, it offered material carefully calculated to appeal to most tastes and both sexes ... MYSTERY was as meticulously planned as an orchestral score. Its careful variations played upon every shade of reader interest. It was consciously polished, self-consciously feminine. A curious pared sound rang in its fiction, as if the stories had been edited with a chain saw, but the prose flashed with a bright nickel glitter. Slick the magazine may have been, and often over illustrated, but it was also considerably interesting and, for years, excellent." - Cook, Mystery, Detective, and Espionage Magazines, pp. [287]-90.
MYSTERY MAGAZINE: THE ILLUSTRATED DETECTIVE MAGAZINE [COVER TITLE].
Chicago, Illinois: Tower Magazines, Inc., April 1935 (volume 11, number 4). Large octavo, single issue, cover by John Atherton, pictorial wrappers. Fiction by Belden Duff, Whitman Chambers, Hulbert Footner, Helgo Walter, Norman Matson, Mary Plum, and Edward Acheson (his full-length novel, DEAD MEN CAN'T WALK); articles by Henry LaCossitt, Leigh Matteson, Edmund Pearson, and Theodore Dreiser ("I Find the Real American Tragedy"). A large format, densely illustrated, bedsheet-sized pulp. "The fiction emphasized the woman's point of view, was often narrated by a woman, and featured as many feminine as masculine detectives. In the rear of the magazine flowered all the usual departments of a more conventional woman's publication ... That this magazine would publish much fiction of interest seems improbable. But without effort, it contrived to be superb. ILLUSTRATED DETECTIVE selected outstanding writers who had made their mark in the 1920s and mingled these with rising writers of the 1930s. Over the years, the magazine would publish work by top names in the mystery field, including Ellery Queen, Stuart Palmer, Sax Rohmer, Arnold Kummer, Hulbert Footner, Vincent Starrett and H. Bedford-Jones. The fiction was polished, often strongly compressed, and good enough for a large amount of it to appear later between book covers. The magazine appeared monthly for almost six years, sixty-nine issues, at ten cents a copy. After three years, the title was changed to THE MYSTERY MAGAZINE ... Covers were tasteful, bright, and uneventful, relying heavily on the faces of self-confident women. Inside was an astonishing amount of material: eight to ten pieces of fiction, four or more crime-fact articles, and up to ten continuing departments (about half of these slanted directly toward women). When the magazine was at its peak in the early 1930s, it offered material carefully calculated to appeal to most tastes and both sexes ... MYSTERY was as meticulously planned as an orchestral score. Its careful variations played upon every shade of reader interest. It was consciously polished, self-consciously feminine. A curious pared sound rang in its fiction, as if the stories had been edited with a chain saw, but the prose flashed with a bright nickel glitter. Slick the magazine may have been, and often over illustrated, but it was also considerably interesting and, for years, excellent." - Cook, Mystery, Detective, and Espionage Magazines, pp. [287]-90.
MYSTERY MAGAZINE: THE ILLUSTRATED DETECTIVE MAGAZINE [COVER TITLE].
Chicago, IL: Tower Magazines, Inc., 1934. Large octavo, single issue, pictorial wrappers. Fiction by Ellery Queen, Vincent Starrett, Stuart Palmer, Louis Golding, Maurice Renard and others. A large format, densely illustrated, bedsheet-sized pulp. "The fiction emphasized the woman's point of view, was often narrated by a woman, and featured as many feminine as masculine detectives. In the rear of the magazine flowered all the usual departments of a more conventional woman's publication ... That this magazine would publish much fiction of interest seems improbable. But without effort, it contrived to be superb. ILLUSTRATED DETECTIVE selected outstanding writers who had made their mark in the 1920s and mingled these with rising writers of the 1930s. Over the years, the magazine would publish work by top names in the mystery field, including Ellery Queen, Stuart Palmer, Sax Rohmer, Arnold Kummer, Hulbert Footner, Vincent Starrett and H. Bedford-Jones. The fiction was polished, often strongly compressed, and good enough for a large amount of it to appear later between book covers. The magazine appeared monthly for almost six years, sixty-nine issues, at ten cents a copy. After three years, the title was changed to THE MYSTERY MAGAZINE ... Covers were tasteful, bright, and uneventful, relying heavily on the faces of self-confident women. Inside was an astonishing amount of material: eight to ten pieces of fiction, four or more crime-fact articles, and up to ten continuing departments (about half of these slanted directly toward women). When the magazine was at its peak in the early 1930s, it offered material carefully calculated to appeal to most tastes and both sexes ... MYSTERY was as meticulously planned as an orchestral score. Its careful variations played upon every shade of reader interest. It was consciously polished, self-consciously feminine. A curious pared sound rang in its fiction, as if the stories had been edited with a chain saw, but the prose flashed with a bright nickel glitter. Slick the magazine may have been, and often over illustrated, but it was also considerably interesting and, for years, excellent." - Cook, Mystery, Detective, and Espionage Magazines, pp. [287]-90.
MYSTERY MAGAZINE: THE ILLUSTRATED DETECTIVE MAGAZINE [COVER TITLE].
Chicago, IL: Tower Magazines, Inc., 1934. Large octavo, single issue, pictorial wrappers. Fiction by Frederick Nebel, Ellery Queen, Norman Matson, Guy Endore, and others. A large format, densely illustrated, bedsheet-sized pulp. "The fiction emphasized the woman's point of view, was often narrated by a woman, and featured as many feminine as masculine detectives. In the rear of the magazine flowered all the usual departments of a more conventional woman's publication ... That this magazine would publish much fiction of interest seems improbable. But without effort, it contrived to be superb. ILLUSTRATED DETECTIVE selected outstanding writers who had made their mark in the 1920s and mingled these with rising writers of the 1930s. Over the years, the magazine would publish work by top names in the mystery field, including Ellery Queen, Stuart Palmer, Sax Rohmer, Arnold Kummer, Hulbert Footner, Vincent Starrett and H. Bedford-Jones. The fiction was polished, often strongly compressed, and good enough for a large amount of it to appear later between book covers. The magazine appeared monthly for almost six years, sixty-nine issues, at ten cents a copy. After three years, the title was changed to THE MYSTERY MAGAZINE ... Covers were tasteful, bright, and uneventful, relying heavily on the faces of self-confident women. Inside was an astonishing amount of material: eight to ten pieces of fiction, four or more crime-fact articles, and up to ten continuing departments (about half of these slanted directly toward women). When the magazine was at its peak in the early 1930s, it offered material carefully calculated to appeal to most tastes and both sexes ... MYSTERY was as meticulously planned as an orchestral score. Its careful variations played upon every shade of reader interest. It was consciously polished, self-consciously feminine. A curious pared sound rang in its fiction, as if the stories had been edited with a chain saw, but the prose flashed with a bright nickel glitter. Slick the magazine may have been, and often over illustrated, but it was also considerably interesting and, for years, excellent." - Cook, Mystery, Detective, and Espionage Magazines, pp. [287]-90.
MYSTERY MAGAZINE: THE ILLUSTRATED DETECTIVE MAGAZINE [COVER TITLE].
Chicago, IL: Tower Magazines, Inc., 1934. Large octavo, single issue, pictorial wrappers. Fiction by George Harmon Coxe, Guy Endore, Hulbert Footner and others. A large format, densely illustrated, bedsheet-sized pulp. "The fiction emphasized the woman's point of view, was often narrated by a woman, and featured as many feminine as masculine detectives. In the rear of the magazine flowered all the usual departments of a more conventional woman's publication ... That this magazine would publish much fiction of interest seems improbable. But without effort, it contrived to be superb. ILLUSTRATED DETECTIVE selected outstanding writers who had made their mark in the 1920s and mingled these with rising writers of the 1930s. Over the years, the magazine would publish work by top names in the mystery field, including Ellery Queen, Stuart Palmer, Sax Rohmer, Arnold Kummer, Hulbert Footner, Vincent Starrett and H. Bedford-Jones. The fiction was polished, often strongly compressed, and good enough for a large amount of it to appear later between book covers. The magazine appeared monthly for almost six years, sixty-nine issues, at ten cents a copy. After three years, the title was changed to THE MYSTERY MAGAZINE ... Covers were tasteful, bright, and uneventful, relying heavily on the faces of self-confident women. Inside was an astonishing amount of material: eight to ten pieces of fiction, four or more crime-fact articles, and up to ten continuing departments (about half of these slanted directly toward women). When the magazine was at its peak in the early 1930s, it offered material carefully calculated to appeal to most tastes and both sexes ... MYSTERY was as meticulously planned as an orchestral score. Its careful variations played upon every shade of reader interest. It was consciously polished, self-consciously feminine. A curious pared sound rang in its fiction, as if the stories had been edited with a chain saw, but the prose flashed with a bright nickel glitter. Slick the magazine may have been, and often over illustrated, but it was also considerably interesting and, for years, excellent." - Cook, Mystery, Detective, and Espionage Magazines, pp. [287]-90.
MYSTERY MAGAZINE: THE ILLUSTRATED DETECTIVE MAGAZINE [COVER TITLE].
Dunellen, N.J. Tower Magazines, Inc., 1933. Large octavo, single issue, pictorial wrappers. "The Murder Club" by H. Bedford Jones. Also fiction by Herman Landon, Barry Perowne and others. A large format, densely illustrated, bedsheet-sized pulp. "The fiction emphasized the woman's point of view, was often narrated by a woman, and featured as many feminine as masculine detectives. In the rear of the magazine flowered all the usual departments of a more conventional woman's publication ... That this magazine would publish much fiction of interest seems improbable. But without effort, it contrived to be superb. ILLUSTRATED DETECTIVE selected outstanding writers who had made their mark in the 1920s and mingled these with rising writers of the 1930s. Over the years, the magazine would publish work by top names in the mystery field, including Ellery Queen, Stuart Palmer, Sax Rohmer, Arnold Kummer, Hulbert Footner, Vincent Starrett and H. Bedford-Jones. The fiction was polished, often strongly compressed, and good enough for a large amount of it to appear later between book covers. The magazine appeared monthly for almost six years, sixty-nine issues, at ten cents a copy. After three years, the title was changed to THE MYSTERY MAGAZINE ... Covers were tasteful, bright, and uneventful, relying heavily on the faces of self-confident women. Inside was an astonishing amount of material: eight to ten pieces of fiction, four or more crime-fact articles, and up to ten continuing departments (about half of these slanted directly toward women). When the magazine was at its peak in the early 1930s, it offered material carefully calculated to appeal to most tastes and both sexes ... MYSTERY was as meticulously planned as an orchestral score. Its careful variations played upon every shade of reader interest. It was consciously polished, self-consciously feminine. A curious pared sound rang in its fiction, as if the stories had been edited with a chain saw, but the prose flashed with a bright nickel glitter. Slick the magazine may have been, and often over illustrated, but it was also considerably interesting and, for years, excellent." - Cook, Mystery, Detective, and Espionage Magazines, pp. [287]-90.
MYSTERY MAGAZINE: THE ILLUSTRATED DETECTIVE MAGAZINE [COVER TITLE].
Dunellen, N.J. Tower Magazines, Inc., June 1934 (volume 9, number 6). Large octavo, single issue, cover by Charles de Feo, pictorial wrappers. Contributors include Ellery Queen ("The Two-Headed Dog," a weird mystery story later collected with others in THE ADVENTURES OF ELLERY QUEEN), Francis Beeding, Stuart Palmer, Henry Lacossitt, Carl Mattison Chapin (his full-length novel, THE IMPERFECT TWINS), and others. A large format, densely illustrated, bedsheet-sized pulp. "The fiction emphasized the woman's point of view, was often narrated by a woman, and featured as many feminine as masculine detectives. In the rear of the magazine flowered all the usual departments of a more conventional woman's publication ... That this magazine would publish much fiction of interest seems improbable. But without effort, it contrived to be superb. ILLUSTRATED DETECTIVE selected outstanding writers who had made their mark in the 1920s and mingled these with rising writers of the 1930s. Over the years, the magazine would publish work by top names in the mystery field, including Ellery Queen, Stuart Palmer, Sax Rohmer, Arnold Kummer, Hulbert Footner, Vincent Starrett and H. Bedford-Jones. The fiction was polished, often strongly compressed, and good enough for a large amount of it to appear later between book covers. The magazine appeared monthly for almost six years, sixty-nine issues, at ten cents a copy. After three years, the title was changed to THE MYSTERY MAGAZINE ... Covers were tasteful, bright, and uneventful, relying heavily on the faces of self-confident women. Inside was an astonishing amount of material: eight to ten pieces of fiction, four or more crime-fact articles, and up to ten continuing departments (about half of these slanted directly toward women). When the magazine was at its peak in the early 1930s, it offered material carefully calculated to appeal to most tastes and both sexes ... MYSTERY was as meticulously planned as an orchestral score. Its careful variations played upon every shade of reader interest. It was consciously polished, self-consciously feminine. A curious pared sound rang in its fiction, as if the stories had been edited with a chain saw, but the prose flashed with a bright nickel glitter. Slick the magazine may have been, and often over illustrated, but it was also considerably interesting and, for years, excellent." - Cook, Mystery, Detective, and Espionage Magazines, pp. [287]-90.
MYSTERY MAGAZINE: THE ILLUSTRATED DETECTIVE MAGAZINE [COVER TITLE].
Chicago, Illinois: Tower Magazines, Inc., June 1935 (volume 11, number 6). Large octavo, single issue, cover by John Atherton, pictorial wrappers. Fiction by Francis Beeding, Whitman Chambers, Chapin Howard, George Harmon Coxe (a hard-boiled mystery story by a prolific writer for the pulps, including BACK MASK), Hulbert Footner, and Raymond Leslie Goldman (his full-length novel, IN THE DARK OF NIGHT); articles by Edward Hale Bierstadt, Theodore Dreiser ("I find the Real American Tragedy"), and others. A large format, densely illustrated, bedsheet-sized pulp. "The fiction emphasized the woman's point of view, was often narrated by a woman, and featured as many feminine as masculine detectives. In the rear of the magazine flowered all the usual departments of a more conventional woman's publication ... That this magazine would publish much fiction of interest seems improbable. But without effort, it contrived to be superb. ILLUSTRATED DETECTIVE selected outstanding writers who had made their mark in the 1920s and mingled these with rising writers of the 1930s. Over the years, the magazine would publish work by top names in the mystery field, including Ellery Queen, Stuart Palmer, Sax Rohmer, Arnold Kummer, Hulbert Footner, Vincent Starrett and H. Bedford-Jones. The fiction was polished, often strongly compressed, and good enough for a large amount of it to appear later between book covers. The magazine appeared monthly for almost six years, sixty-nine issues, at ten cents a copy. After three years, the title was changed to THE MYSTERY MAGAZINE ... Covers were tasteful, bright, and uneventful, relying heavily on the faces of self-confident women. Inside was an astonishing amount of material: eight to ten pieces of fiction, four or more crime-fact articles, and up to ten continuing departments (about half of these slanted directly toward women). When the magazine was at its peak in the early 1930s, it offered material carefully calculated to appeal to most tastes and both sexes ... MYSTERY was as meticulously planned as an orchestral score. Its careful variations played upon every shade of reader interest. It was consciously polished, self-consciously feminine. A curious pared sound rang in its fiction, as if the stories had been edited with a chain saw, but the prose flashed with a bright nickel glitter. Slick the magazine may have been, and often over illustrated, but it was also considerably interesting and, for years, excellent." - Cook, Mystery, Detective, and Espionage Magazines, pp. [287]-90.
MYSTERY MAGAZINE: THE ILLUSTRATED DETECTIVE MAGAZINE [COVER TITLE].
Chicago, IL: Tower Magazines, Inc., 1934. Large octavo, single issue, pictorial wrappers. Fiction by Ellery Queen, Francis Beeding, Stuart Palmer, and others. A large format, densely illustrated, bedsheet-sized pulp. "The fiction emphasized the woman's point of view, was often narrated by a woman, and featured as many feminine as masculine detectives. In the rear of the magazine flowered all the usual departments of a more conventional woman's publication ... That this magazine would publish much fiction of interest seems improbable. But without effort, it contrived to be superb. ILLUSTRATED DETECTIVE selected outstanding writers who had made their mark in the 1920s and mingled these with rising writers of the 1930s. Over the years, the magazine would publish work by top names in the mystery field, including Ellery Queen, Stuart Palmer, Sax Rohmer, Arnold Kummer, Hulbert Footner, Vincent Starrett and H. Bedford-Jones. The fiction was polished, often strongly compressed, and good enough for a large amount of it to appear later between book covers. The magazine appeared monthly for almost six years, sixty-nine issues, at ten cents a copy. After three years, the title was changed to THE MYSTERY MAGAZINE ... Covers were tasteful, bright, and uneventful, relying heavily on the faces of self-confident women. Inside was an astonishing amount of material: eight to ten pieces of fiction, four or more crime-fact articles, and up to ten continuing departments (about half of these slanted directly toward women). When the magazine was at its peak in the early 1930s, it offered material carefully calculated to appeal to most tastes and both sexes ... MYSTERY was as meticulously planned as an orchestral score. Its careful variations played upon every shade of reader interest. It was consciously polished, self-consciously feminine. A curious pared sound rang in its fiction, as if the stories had been edited with a chain saw, but the prose flashed with a bright nickel glitter. Slick the magazine may have been, and often over illustrated, but it was also considerably interesting and, for years, excellent." - Cook, Mystery, Detective, and Espionage Magazines, pp. [287]-90.
MYSTERY MAGAZINE: THE ILLUSTRATED DETECTIVE MAGAZINE [COVER TITLE].
Chicago, IL: Tower Magazines, Inc., 1934. Large octavo, single issue, pictorial wrappers. Fiction by Ellery Queen, Vincent Starrett, Mignon G. Eberhart, Hulbert Footner and others. A large format, densely illustrated, bedsheet-sized pulp. "The fiction emphasized the woman's point of view, was often narrated by a woman, and featured as many feminine as masculine detectives. In the rear of the magazine flowered all the usual departments of a more conventional woman's publication ... That this magazine would publish much fiction of interest seems improbable. But without effort, it contrived to be superb. ILLUSTRATED DETECTIVE selected outstanding writers who had made their mark in the 1920s and mingled these with rising writers of the 1930s. Over the years, the magazine would publish work by top names in the mystery field, including Ellery Queen, Stuart Palmer, Sax Rohmer, Arnold Kummer, Hulbert Footner, Vincent Starrett and H. Bedford-Jones. The fiction was polished, often strongly compressed, and good enough for a large amount of it to appear later between book covers. The magazine appeared monthly for almost six years, sixty-nine issues, at ten cents a copy. After three years, the title was changed to THE MYSTERY MAGAZINE ... Covers were tasteful, bright, and uneventful, relying heavily on the faces of self-confident women. Inside was an astonishing amount of material: eight to ten pieces of fiction, four or more crime-fact articles, and up to ten continuing departments (about half of these slanted directly toward women). When the magazine was at its peak in the early 1930s, it offered material carefully calculated to appeal to most tastes and both sexes ... MYSTERY was as meticulously planned as an orchestral score. Its careful variations played upon every shade of reader interest. It was consciously polished, self-consciously feminine. A curious pared sound rang in its fiction, as if the stories had been edited with a chain saw, but the prose flashed with a bright nickel glitter. Slick the magazine may have been, and often over illustrated, but it was also considerably interesting and, for years, excellent." - Cook, Mystery, Detective, and Espionage Magazines, pp. [287]-90.
MYSTERY MAGAZINE: THE ILLUSTRATED DETECTIVE MAGAZINE [COVER TITLE].
Chicago, IL: Tower Magazines, Inc., 1933. Large octavo, single issue, pictorial wrappers. "The House Under the Lake" by Herbert Adams. Also fiction by Stuart Palmer (Hildegarde Withers), Mignon G. Eberhart, Hulbert Footner, and others. A large format, densely illustrated, bedsheet-sized pulp. "The fiction emphasized the woman's point of view, was often narrated by a woman, and featured as many feminine as masculine detectives. In the rear of the magazine flowered all the usual departments of a more conventional woman's publication ... That this magazine would publish much fiction of interest seems improbable. But without effort, it contrived to be superb. ILLUSTRATED DETECTIVE selected outstanding writers who had made their mark in the 1920s and mingled these with rising writers of the 1930s. Over the years, the magazine would publish work by top names in the mystery field, including Ellery Queen, Stuart Palmer, Sax Rohmer, Arnold Kummer, Hulbert Footner, Vincent Starrett and H. Bedford-Jones. The fiction was polished, often strongly compressed, and good enough for a large amount of it to appear later between book covers. The magazine appeared monthly for almost six years, sixty-nine issues, at ten cents a copy. After three years, the title was changed to THE MYSTERY MAGAZINE ... Covers were tasteful, bright, and uneventful, relying heavily on the faces of self-confident women. Inside was an astonishing amount of material: eight to ten pieces of fiction, four or more crime-fact articles, and up to ten continuing departments (about half of these slanted directly toward women). When the magazine was at its peak in the early 1930s, it offered material carefully calculated to appeal to most tastes and both sexes ... MYSTERY was as meticulously planned as an orchestral score. Its careful variations played upon every shade of reader interest. It was consciously polished, self-consciously feminine. A curious pared sound rang in its fiction, as if the stories had been edited with a chain saw, but the prose flashed with a bright nickel glitter. Slick the magazine may have been, and often over illustrated, but it was also considerably interesting and, for years, excellent." - Cook, Mystery, Detective, and Espionage Magazines, pp. [287]-90.
MYSTERY MAGAZINE: THE ILLUSTRATED DETECTIVE MAGAZINE [COVER TITLE].
Chicago, IL: Tower Magazines, Inc., 1933. Large octavo, single issue, pictorial wrappers. "The House Under the Lake" by Herbert Adams. Also fiction by Stuart Palmer (Hildegarde Withers), Mignon G. Eberhart, Hulbert Footner, and others. A large format, densely illustrated, bedsheet-sized pulp. "The fiction emphasized the woman's point of view, was often narrated by a woman, and featured as many feminine as masculine detectives. In the rear of the magazine flowered all the usual departments of a more conventional woman's publication ... That this magazine would publish much fiction of interest seems improbable. But without effort, it contrived to be superb. ILLUSTRATED DETECTIVE selected outstanding writers who had made their mark in the 1920s and mingled these with rising writers of the 1930s. Over the years, the magazine would publish work by top names in the mystery field, including Ellery Queen, Stuart Palmer, Sax Rohmer, Arnold Kummer, Hulbert Footner, Vincent Starrett and H. Bedford-Jones. The fiction was polished, often strongly compressed, and good enough for a large amount of it to appear later between book covers. The magazine appeared monthly for almost six years, sixty-nine issues, at ten cents a copy. After three years, the title was changed to THE MYSTERY MAGAZINE ... Covers were tasteful, bright, and uneventful, relying heavily on the faces of self-confident women. Inside was an astonishing amount of material: eight to ten pieces of fiction, four or more crime-fact articles, and up to ten continuing departments (about half of these slanted directly toward women). When the magazine was at its peak in the early 1930s, it offered material carefully calculated to appeal to most tastes and both sexes ... MYSTERY was as meticulously planned as an orchestral score. Its careful variations played upon every shade of reader interest. It was consciously polished, self-consciously feminine. A curious pared sound rang in its fiction, as if the stories had been edited with a chain saw, but the prose flashed with a bright nickel glitter. Slick the magazine may have been, and often over illustrated, but it was also considerably interesting and, for years, excellent." - Cook, Mystery, Detective, and Espionage Magazines, pp. [287]-90.
MYSTERY MAGAZINE: THE ILLUSTRATED DETECTIVE MAGAZINE [COVER TITLE].
Dunellen, N.J. Tower Magazines, Inc., 1934. Large octavo, single issue, cover by Harold Woolridge, pictorial wrappers. Contributors include Ellery Queen ("The Black Cats Vanished," a weird mystery story later collected with others in THE ADVENTURES OF ELLERY QUEEN), Stuart Palmer, Henry Lacossitt, Roger East (his full-length novel, MURDER IN THE GARDEN), and others. A large format, densely illustrated, bedsheet-sized pulp. "The fiction emphasized the woman's point of view, was often narrated by a woman, and featured as many feminine as masculine detectives. In the rear of the magazine flowered all the usual departments of a more conventional woman's publication ... That this magazine would publish much fiction of interest seems improbable. But without effort, it contrived to be superb. ILLUSTRATED DETECTIVE selected outstanding writers who had made their mark in the 1920s and mingled these with rising writers of the 1930s. Over the years, the magazine would publish work by top names in the mystery field, including Ellery Queen, Stuart Palmer, Sax Rohmer, Arnold Kummer, Hulbert Footner, Vincent Starrett and H. Bedford-Jones. The fiction was polished, often strongly compressed, and good enough for a large amount of it to appear later between book covers. The magazine appeared monthly for almost six years, sixty-nine issues, at ten cents a copy. After three years, the title was changed to THE MYSTERY MAGAZINE ... Covers were tasteful, bright, and uneventful, relying heavily on the faces of self-confident women. Inside was an astonishing amount of material: eight to ten pieces of fiction, four or more crime-fact articles, and up to ten continuing departments (about half of these slanted directly toward women). When the magazine was at its peak in the early 1930s, it offered material carefully calculated to appeal to most tastes and both sexes ... MYSTERY was as meticulously planned as an orchestral score. Its careful variations played upon every shade of reader interest. It was consciously polished, self-consciously feminine. A curious pared sound rang in its fiction, as if the stories had been edited with a chain saw, but the prose flashed with a bright nickel glitter. Slick the magazine may have been, and often over illustrated, but it was also considerably interesting and, for years, excellent." - Cook, Mystery, Detective, and Espionage Magazines, pp. [287]-90.
MYSTERY MAGAZINE: THE ILLUSTRATED DETECTIVE MAGAZINE [COVER TITLE].
Chicago, IL: Tower Magazines, Inc., 1934. Large octavo, single issue, cover by Harold Woolridge, pictorial wrappers. Fiction by Walter F. Ripperberger, Stuart Palmer, Ellery Queen, Roger East and others. A large format, densely illustrated, bedsheet-sized pulp. "The fiction emphasized the woman's point of view, was often narrated by a woman, and featured as many feminine as masculine detectives. In the rear of the magazine flowered all the usual departments of a more conventional woman's publication ... That this magazine would publish much fiction of interest seems improbable. But without effort, it contrived to be superb. ILLUSTRATED DETECTIVE selected outstanding writers who had made their mark in the 1920s and mingled these with rising writers of the 1930s. Over the years, the magazine would publish work by top names in the mystery field, including Ellery Queen, Stuart Palmer, Sax Rohmer, Arnold Kummer, Hulbert Footner, Vincent Starrett and H. Bedford-Jones. The fiction was polished, often strongly compressed, and good enough for a large amount of it to appear later between book covers. The magazine appeared monthly for almost six years, sixty-nine issues, at ten cents a copy. After three years, the title was changed to THE MYSTERY MAGAZINE ... Covers were tasteful, bright, and uneventful, relying heavily on the faces of self-confident women. Inside was an astonishing amount of material: eight to ten pieces of fiction, four or more crime-fact articles, and up to ten continuing departments (about half of these slanted directly toward women). When the magazine was at its peak in the early 1930s, it offered material carefully calculated to appeal to most tastes and both sexes ... MYSTERY was as meticulously planned as an orchestral score. Its careful variations played upon every shade of reader interest. It was consciously polished, self-consciously feminine. A curious pared sound rang in its fiction, as if the stories had been edited with a chain saw, but the prose flashed with a bright nickel glitter. Slick the magazine may have been, and often over illustrated, but it was also considerably interesting and, for years, excellent." - Cook, Mystery, Detective, and Espionage Magazines, pp. [287]-90.