Friday 24 September 2021

Pulp Fiction 1910s-1920s - part 1

Pulp magazines were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from around 1896 to the 1950s. The term “pulp” derives from the cheap wood pulp on which the magazines were printed. In contrast, magazines printed on higher-quality paper were called "glossies" or "slicks".

The pulps gave rise to the term pulp fiction in reference to run-of-the-mill, low-quality literature. Pulps were the successors to the penny dreadfuls, dime novels, and short fiction magazines of the 1800s.

Although many respected writers wrote for pulps, the magazines were best known for their lurid, exploitative, and sensational subject matter. Modern superhero comic books are sometimes considered descendants of "hero pulps"- pulp magazines often featured illustrated novel-length stories of heroic characters, such as Flash Gordon, The Shadow, Doc Savage, and the Phantom Detective. 

At their peak of popularity in the 1920s and 1930s, the most successful pulps could sell up to one million copies per issue. The most successful pulp magazines were Argosy, Adventure, Blue Book, and Short Stories, collectively described by some pulp historians as "The Big Four.” Among the best known other titles of this period were Amazing Stories, Black Mask, and Dime Detective, among others. 

1939 Robert de Graff launched Pocket Books. It was the first American mass-market-paperback line, and it transformed the industry. But paper book covers are almost as old as print. They date back to the sixteenth century, and paper-backing has been the ordinary mode of book production in France, for a long time. The first edition of James Joyce’s “Ulysses,” published in Paris in 1922, is a paperback. In the United States, paperback publishing was tried on a major scale at least twice during the nineteenth century: first, in the eighteen-forties, with an enterprise called the American Library of Useful Knowledge, and after the Civil War, when, unfettered by international copyright agreements, American publishers brought out cheap editions of popular European novels.

Many notable authors and books were first published as pulp fiction:

Tarzan of the Apes first appeared serialised in 1912-13 editions of All-Story magazine. Dashiell Hammet’s The Maltese Falcon was originally published in Black Mask magazine in 1930, and The Thin Man in 1934 in Redbook.


This is part 1 of a 4-part series on Pulp Fiction featuring the 1910s - 1920s.

Later larger series will feature Pulp Fiction of the 1930s, and Pulp Fiction of the 1940s - 1950s.



Modest Stein (1871-1958)



Modest Aronstam (Stein) was born in Kovno, Russia in 1871. In 1888 aged 17, he emigrated to America by himself. He moved to New York City and lived on the Lower East Side in the Jewish ghetto. It’s not known where he studied art, but by 1898 his courtroom sketches were published in The New York World, The New York Herald, and The New York Sun.

Stein began to illustrate cover paintings for pulp magazines in 1901. His cover art appeared on All Story, Argosy, The Cavalier, Munsey's, and People's Magazine. During the 1920s he was a cover artist for Clues, Complete Stories, Detective Stories, Far West Illustrated, and Love Story.

During the 1930s he continued to illustrate covers for Street & Smith pulp magazines, such as Crime Busters, Complete Stories, Detective Stories, Love Story, and Unknown. He also did many covers for the Street & Smith magazine Picture Play, which featured elegant portraits of glamorous Hollywood stars. In 1939 he moved to Hollywood, California, to work as a portrait artist.

In 1943 he returned to New York City, where he continued to create covers for Street & Smith pulp magazines, such as Astounding Science Fiction, Love Story, Mystery Magazine, Romantic Range, Doc Savage, and The Shadow. In 1949 Street & Smith ceased publication of pulp magazines as the popularity of the genre declined.

During the 1950s his major creative outlet was portraiture. In1958 he was awarded the Art League of Long Island Portraiture Prize. Two days later Stein died in Booth Memorial Hospital in Flushing, Queens, at the age of eighty-seven.


1915 Movie Pictorial
December issue
Elsie Janis

1917 All-Story Weekly
July 28 issue
Haunted Hands

1918 All-Story Weekly
July 6 issue
The Murder Ship

1919 All-Story Weekly
November 8 issue
Gray Dusk

1919 All-Story Weekly
September 6 issue
Comrades of Peril

1919 All-Story Weekly
October 4 issue
Where Dead Men Walk

1920 All-Story Weekly
February 28 issue
The House With a Bad Name

1920 All-Story Weekly
May 8 issue
On the Face of the Waters

1922 Argosy All-Story Weekly
December 16 issue
The Free Trader

1923 Argosy All-Story Weekly
April 28 issue
Human Beings

1923 Argosy All-Story Weekly
December 15 issue
Hopalong Cassidy Returns

1923 Argosy All-Story Weekly
January 13 issue
Jungle Test

1923 Argosy All-Story Weekly
June 9 issue
A Million To One Chance

1924 Argosy All-Story Weekly
June 21 issue
Liberation

1925 Love Story Magazine
November 21 issue



1925 The Bandits of Hell's Bend by Edgar Rice Burroughs

1926 Argosy All-Story Weekly
August 28 issue
The Big Voice

1926 Argosy All-Story Weekly
June 26 issue
The Radio Planet

1926 The Popular Magazine
December 20 issue
The Obituary Lottery

1927 All-Story Weekly
July 10 issue
Moors End

1927 Picture Play
November issue
Greta Garbo

1927 Picture Play
October issue
Gertrude Olmsted

1928 Picture Play
March issue
Esther Ralston

1929 Picture Play
July issue
Lily Damita


1930 Love Story Magazine
July 26
Mid-Summer Issue

1930 Picture Play
June issue
Greta Garbo

1931 Love Story Magazine
May 2 issue
A New Story of Hollywood

1931 Love Story
May 23 issue
'neath Tropical Skies

1931 Picture Play
October issue
Lupe Velez

1931 The Shadow
April issue
The Shadow Knows!

1932 Love Story Magazine
October 8 issue cover artwork

1933 Love Story Magazine
July 15 issue
Tender Melody

1934 Love Story Magazine
March 10 issue

1935 Love Story Magazine
November 9 issue
Football Wife

1937 Detective Story Magazine
February issue
Burglar - Wanted

1937 Love Story Magazine
August 28 issue
Justice of Peace

1938 Love Story Magazine
October 1 issue

1939 Clues Detective Stories
June issue
Death of the Seven Masks

1939 Clues Detective Stories
October issue
The Manchu Skull

1939 Clues Detective Stories
September issue
I Know Who You Are Not

1939 Love Story
January 7 issue
Arabian Love Song

1939 Unknown
October issue
The Elder Gods

1940 Detective Story
November issue
Matter Over Mind

1941 Detective Story Magazine
December issue
Corpse in Caricature

1943 Doc Savage
September issue
Hell Below

1943 The Shadow
August issue
Messenger of Death

1943 The Shadow
December issue
Murder by Moonlight

1943 The Shadow
July issue
The Golden Doom

1943 The Shadow
June issue
Murder Lake

1943 The Shadow
May issue
"The Robot Master"

1943 The Shadow
November issue
The Muggers

1943 The Shadow
September issue
House of Ghosts

1944 Doc Savage
November issue
Satan Black

1944 The Shadow
February issue
Syndicate of Death

1945 The Shadow
March issue
Five Keys to Crime
Original artwork by Modest Stein

1945 The Shadow
March issue
Five Keys to Crime


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