Friday 1 October 2021

Pulp Fiction 1910s-1920s - part 4

 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 4 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.


Hubert Rogers

Hubert Rogers was born in 1898. Best known as Astounding Science Fiction’s primary cover artist from 1939 to 1953, his illustrations also graced the covers and interiors of Adventure, Argosy, Short Stories, Detective Story, The Whisperer, The Wizard, Ace-High, West, Romance, Love Story, and Sport Story. Rogers trained at the Acadia Art Academy in Nova Scotia. As an art student of exceptional promise, he was introduced to the prestigious Group of Seven with A.Y. Jackson, becoming his lifelong friend and mentor. After enlisting in the Canadian Army to fight in the First World War, Rogers settled in the United States where he continued his art studies in Boston and New York

Having opened his own art studio in Brooklyn Heights, Rogers had a daughter and ex-wife to support while continuing his studies. He supplemented his income with newspaper work and by freelancing for pulp magazines. Rogers’ association with the pulps would limit his ability to find work with some of the higher-paying slicks and publishing houses.

During the Great Depression, Rogers relocated to New Mexico where he lived and worked among a thriving community of artists and bohemians for five years. The growing volume of pulp assignments brought him back to New York in 1936 where he settled in Greenwich Village and met and married his second wife. Moving back to Canada in 1942, Rogers was employed by the Wartime Information Board in Ottawa where he produced numerous wartime Adventure magazine propaganda posters.

After the Second World War, Rogers moved his wife and their young son to Vermont where his second daughter would be born in 1947. Rogers stayed busy with pulp assignments through the early 1950s. Later in life, Rogers painted landscapes and commissioned portraits of U.S. and Canadian politicians and other prominent citizens. He died in Ottawa in 1982 at age 83.


1929 Adventure February 1 issue
Catspaw of Piperock by W.C. Tuttle

1929 Adventure May 15 issue
North of Singapore by H. Bedford-Jones

1932 Adventure October 1 issue 
Three complete Novelettes

1934 Adventure January issue
Distinctive Stories by...

1935 Adventure August 1 issue
Killers Cold by Arthur O. Friel

1935 Adventure May 15 issue
Damned Dutchman by Gordon Young
original cover artwork
 oil painting

1935 Adventure May 15 issue
Damned Dutchman by Gordon Young

1935 Adventure September 1 issue
Two Novelettes

1935 Dime Adventure June issue
Tropic Treasure by H. Benge
Six Cases of Rifles by William Chamberlain

1936 Argosy August 22 issue
Don Peon by Johnston McCulley

1936 Argosy September 19 issue
Tarzan and the Magic Men
by Edgar Rice Burroughs

1937 Adventure October issue
Here's Luck by Thomas McMorrow

1938 Adventure January issue
original cover artwork
oil painting

1938 Adventure March issue
Six Feet and Horse-Faced
by Caddo Cameron

1939 Astounding Science Fiction February issue
Crucible of Power by Jack Williamson

1939 Astounding Science Fiction October issue
"Skylark" Smith

1939 Detective Story March issue
Lester Leith and The Fourth Musketeer
by Erle Stanley Gardner

1939 Detective Story March issue
original cover artwork
oil painting

1940 Astounding Science Fiction February issue
"If This Goes On..." by Robert Heinlein

1940 Astounding Science Fiction August issue
The Stars Look Down by Lester Del Rey

1940 Astounding Science Fiction December issue
Old Man Mulligan by P. Schuyler Miller

1940 Astounding Science Fiction July issue
Crisis in Utopia by Norman L. Knight

1940 Astounding Science Fiction November issue
"Salvage" by Vic Phillips

1940 Astounding Science Fiction October issue
"Slan!" by A.E. Van Vogt

1940 Astounding Science-Fiction June issue
The Roads Must Roll by Robert Heinlein
original cover artwork

1940 Astounding Science-Fiction June issue
The Roads Must Roll by Robert Heinlein

1941 Adventure December issue cover
Viva China! by James Norman

1941 Astounding Science  Fiction November issue
Second Stage Lensman bt E.E. Smith, Ph.D.

1941 Astounding Science Fiction April issue
The Stolen Dormouse by L. Sprague de Camp
original artwork
acrylic paint

1941 Astounding Science Fiction April issue
The Stolen Dormouse by L. Sprague de Camp

1941 Astounding Science Fiction August issue
Jurisdiction by Nat Schachner

1941 Astounding Science Fiction February issue
Magic City by Nelson S. Bond

1941 Astounding Science Fiction January issue
"Sixth Column" by Anson MacDonald

1941 Astounding Science Fiction July issue
Methuselah's Children by Robert Heinlein

1941 Astounding Science Fiction June issue
Time Wants a Skeleton by Ross Rocklynne

1941 Astounding Science Fiction March issue
Logic of Empire by Robert Heinlein

1941 Astounding Science Fiction May issue
Universe by Robert Heinlein

1942 Astounding Science Fiction August issue
Waldo by Anson MacDonald

1942 Astounding Science Fiction January issue
original artwork
oil paint

1942 Astounding Science Fiction June issue
Bridle and Saddle by Isaac Asimov

1942 Super Science Fiction August issue
original artwork

1942 Super Science August issue


1947 Astounding Science Fiction March issue
The Equalizer by Jack Williamson

1947 Astounding Science Fiction May issue
Fury by Lawrence O'Donnell

1948 Astounding Science Fiction January issue
Now You See It by Isaac Asimov

1948 Astounding Science Fiction March issue
... And Searching Mind by Jack Willianson

1949 Astounding Science  Fiction November issue
... And Now You Don't by Isaac Asimov

1949 Astounding Science Fiction February issue
Seetee Shock by Will Stewart

1950 Astounding Science-Fiction April issue
The Wizard of Linn by A.E. van Vogt

1950 Astounding Science Fiction December issue
Bindlesstiff by James Blish

1950 Astounding Science Fiction February issue
To the Stars by L. Ron Hubbard

1950 Astounding Science Fiction September issue
The Lion and the Lamb by Fritz Leiber

1951 Astounding Science  Fiction June issue
... And Then There Were None by Eric Frank Russell

1951 Astounding Science Fiction December issue
Outward Bound

1951 Astounding Science Fiction July issue
The End of the Line by James Schmitz

1951 Astounding Science Fiction September issue
Day of the Moron by H. Beam Piper

1952 Astounding Science Fiction January issue
That Share of Glory by C.M. Kornbluth

1952 Astounding Science-Fiction April issue
Dumb Waiter by Walter M. Miller, Jr

Date? Dime Adventure Magazine June issue
Tropic Treasure by H. Benge