88-470: Columbia Publications was an American publisher of pulp magazines featuring the genres of science fiction , westerns , detective stories , romance , and sports fiction. The company published such writers as Isaac Asimov , Louis L'Amour , Arthur C. Clarke , Randall Garrett , Edward D. Hoch , and William Tenn ; Robert A. W. Lowndes was an important early editor for such writers as Carol Emshwiller , Edward D. Hoch and Kate Wilhelm . Operating from
176-455: A dime novel publisher partially owned by brother and sister Joseph Meyers and Edna Meyers Williams and hired them to organize a new company called "Avon Publications". Avon copied the basic format established by Pocket Books but differentiated itself by emphasizing, as a book on collecting paperbacks says, "popular appeal rather than loftier concepts of literary merit." In 1953, Time magazine summarized its books as "westerns, whodunits, and
264-410: A collection of reprinted material. Graphic novels may also be printed in trade paperback form. Publishers sometimes release popular collections first in a hardback form, followed by a trade paperback months later. Examples include Marvel Comics ' Secret War and DC Comics ' Watchmen . Japanese manga , when they are collected into volumes, are published in the tankōbon format, approximately
352-414: A continuation of his Hugo Award-winning ERB-dom which began in 1960. It ran for 75 issues and featured articles about the content and selected fiction from the pulps. It became Pulpdom Online in 2013 and continues quarterly publication. After 2000, several small independent publishers released magazines which published short fiction, either short stories or novel-length presentations, in the tradition of
440-476: A couple of science fiction-themed issues thrown in. Five individual issues of Swan American Magazine were devoted to material reprinted from Columbia's Famous Western , two to Western Yarns , and two to Complete Cowboy . Swan American Magazines issues: In 1960, Swan also published three issues of Weird and Occult Library , which mostly featured old stories from Columbia's science fiction pulps. Pulp magazine Pulp magazines (also referred to as "
528-525: A different title), Future Fiction , Sports Winners and Super Sports . At that point, in mid-1941, Robert A. W. Lowndes came on board, becoming Columbia's lead editor. In late 1941, Silberkleit merged Science Fiction with Future Fiction. Two years later Columbia cancelled both Future and Science Fiction Quarterly (launched in 1941), deciding to use the limited paper they could acquire for their line of Western and detective titles instead. (The U.S.'s 1941–1942 entry into World War II brought about
616-424: A few quick dollars could bolster their income with sales to pulps. Additionally, some of the earlier pulps solicited stories from amateurs who were quite happy to see their words in print and could thus be paid token amounts. There were also career pulp writers, capable of turning out huge amounts of prose on a steady basis, often with the aid of dictation to stenographers , machines or typists . Before he became
704-410: A few years of publishing undistinguished novels, focused on the romance genre and became one of the world's largest publishers. At first, paperbacks consisted entirely of reprints, but in 1950, Fawcett Publications ' Gold Medal Books began publishing original fiction in mass–market paperback. It was revolutionary. The term paperback original applies to paperback original publications of fiction. It
792-433: A fraction of the historical cost of a book, and were of a smaller format, 110 mm × 178 mm ( 4 + 3 ⁄ 8 in × 7 in), aimed at the railway traveller. The Routledge's Railway Library series of paperbacks remained in print until 1898, and offered the traveling public 1,277 unique titles. The Continental market also supported examples of cheap paper-bound books: Bernhard Tauchnitz started
880-618: A line of Fawcett paperbacks, and he felt original works would not be a violation of the contract. To challenge the contract, Fawcett published two anthologies— The Best of True Magazine and What Today's Woman Should Know About Marriage and Sex —reprinting material from Fawcett magazines not previously published in books. After these books were successfully published, Fawcett announced in December 1949 that in February 1950 it would publish "original fiction including westerns and mysteries at 25 cents in
968-483: A magazine called Pulp Adventures reprinting old classics. It came out regularly until 2001, and then started up again in 2014. In 1994, Quentin Tarantino directed the film Pulp Fiction . The working title of the film was Black Mask , in homage to the pulp magazine of that name , and it embodied the seedy, violent, often crime-related spirit found in pulp magazines. In 1997 C. Cazadessus Jr. launched Pulpdom ,
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#17328550647921056-408: A medium-sized paperback of 129 mm × 198 mm ( 5 + 1 ⁄ 8 in × 7 + 3 ⁄ 4 in). This size has been used to distinguish literary novels from genre fiction . In the U.S., books of this size are thought of as smaller trade paperbacks (see below). A trade paperback (also called trade paper edition and trade ) is a higher-quality paperback book. If it
1144-536: A network of railways. These innovations enabled the likes of Simms and McIntyre of Belfast, Routledge & Sons (founded in 1836) and Ward & Lock (founded in 1854) to mass-produce cheap uniform yellowback or paperback editions of existing works, and distribute and sell them across the British Isles , principally via the ubiquitous W. H. Smith & Sons newsagent found at most urban British railway stations. These paper bound volumes were offered for sale at
1232-435: A novelist, Upton Sinclair was turning out at least 8,000 words per day seven days a week for the pulps, keeping two stenographers fully employed. Pulps would often have their authors use multiple pen names so that they could use multiple stories by the same person in one issue, or use a given author's stories in three or more successive issues, while still appearing to have varied content. One advantage pulps provided to authors
1320-474: A number of science fiction anthologies that featured content from Science Fiction , Future Fiction , Science Fiction Quarterly , and Dynamic Science Fiction , all of which had been published by Columbia Publications. British publisher Gerald G. Swan (1902–1980) published 16 issues of Swan American Magazine from 1946 to 1950, the contents of which were culled from Columbia Publications titles. The Swan issues focused on Western and detective titles, with
1408-454: A package that provided affordable entertainment to young working-class people. In six years, Argosy went from a few thousand copies per month to over half a million. Street & Smith , a dime novel and boys' weekly publisher, was next on the market. Seeing Argosy ' s success, they launched The Popular Magazine in 1903, which they billed as the "biggest magazine in the world" by virtue of its being two pages (the interior sides of
1496-693: A paper shortage, which equally effected other pulp publications.) Both magazines, as well as Science Fiction , were revived in the 1950s. In addition to pulp magazines, Columbia published a few paperback books , most notably Noel Loomis ' City of Glass (1955) (a "Double Action Pocketbook"; originally published in 1942 as a shorter piece in Standard Magazines ' Startling Stories ) and the five-issue series Science Fiction Classics (1942), which included novellas by Earl Binder and Otto Binder writing as "John Coleridge," and John Russell Fearn writing as "Dennis Clive". As television supplanted magazines as
1584-448: A paperback copy of Four Tragedies of Shakespeare . "Sometimes one can find Shakespeare on these shelves among the many lurid novels of juvenile delinquents," he comments. In 1945, Bantam Books was formed by Walter B. Pitkin Jr. , Sidney B. Kramer, and husband and wife Ian and Betty Ballantine as a mass-market paperback publisher. The fifth major 1940s publisher of mass-market paperbacks
1672-471: A pocket-sized format" in a series called Gold Medal Books. Publishers Weekly reported in May 1950 that Fawcett books were "similar in appearance and cover allure to many of the paperback reprints, but the story material [was] original and not reprinted from regular editions." It also said the authors would be paid a $ 2,000 advance with a guaranteed first printing of 200,000 copies. That same month Fawcett released
1760-426: A print run of about 10,000 copies each were: This list includes seven novels, the most recent being six year old ( Lost Horizons , 1933), two classics (Shakespeare and Wuthering Heights , both out of copyright), one mystery novel, one book of poetry ( Enough Rope ), and one self-help book. The success of Pocket Books led to others entering the market. In 1941, American News Company , a magazine distributor, bought
1848-409: A reprint and one original, with two covers and two title pages. In 1952, husband and wife publishers Ian and Betty Ballantine left Bantam Books and founded their own publishing house, Ballantine Books , to publish paperbacks simultaneously with their publication in hardcover by traditional publishers. Their first book, Cameron Hawley 's Executive Suite , published January 1, 1952 at 35 cents in
SECTION 20
#17328550647921936-498: A rescuing hero . Cover art played a major part in the marketing of pulp magazines. The early pulp magazines could boast covers by some distinguished American artists; The Popular Magazine had covers by N. C. Wyeth , and Edgar Franklin Wittmack contributed cover art to Argosy and Short Stories . Later, many artists specialized in creating covers mainly for the pulps; a number of the most successful cover artists became as popular as
2024-662: A similar format to American pulp magazines, in that it was printed on rough pulp paper and heavily illustrated. During the Second World War , paper shortages had a serious impact on pulp production, starting a steady rise in costs and the decline of the pulps. Following the model of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine in 1941, some magazines began to switch to digest size : smaller, sometimes thicker magazines. In 1949, Street & Smith closed most of their pulp magazines in order to move upmarket and produce slicks . Competition from comic-books and paperback novels further eroded
2112-477: A smaller profit per unit. First editions of many modern books, especially genre fiction , are issued in paperback. Best-selling books, on the other hand, may maintain sales in hardcover for an extended period to reap the greater profits that the hardcovers provide. The early 19th century saw numerous improvements in the printing, publishing and book-distribution processes, with the introduction of steam-powered printing presses, pulp mills, automatic type setting, and
2200-464: A very long list of pocket editions, James Hilton 's Lost Horizon is often cited as the first American paperback book. However, the first mass-market, pocket-sized, paperback book printed in the U.S. was an edition of Pearl Buck 's The Good Earth , produced by Pocket Books as a proof-of-concept in late 1938, and sold in New York City. The first ten Pocket Book titles published in May 1939 with
2288-444: A wide readership of men and women serving in the military or employed as shift workers; paperbacks were cheap, readily available, and easily posted and carried. Furthermore, people found that restrictions on travel gave them time to read more paperbacks. Four-color printing (invented in 1906 ) and lamination (invented in 1936 ) developed for military maps made the paperback cover eye catching and kept ink from running as people handled
2376-521: Is a collection of "pulp fiction" stories written by such current well-known authors as Stephen King , Nick Hornby , Aimee Bender and Dave Eggers . Explaining his vision for the project, Chabon wrote in the introduction, "I think that we have forgotten how much fun reading a short story can be, and I hope that if nothing else, this treasury goes some small distance toward reminding us of that lost but fundamental truth." The Scottish publisher DC Thomson publishes "My Weekly Compact Novel" every week. It
2464-402: Is a softcover edition of a previous hardcover edition and is published by the same house as the hardcover, the text pages are normally identical with those of the hardcover edition, and the book is almost the same size as the hardcover edition. The pagination is the same, so that references to the text will be unchanged: this is particularly important for reviewers and scholars. The only difference
2552-516: Is literally a pulp novel, though it does not fall into the hard-edged genre most associated with pulp fiction. From 2006 through 2019, Anthony Tollin's imprint Sanctum Books has reprinted all 182 Doc Savage pulp novels, all 24 of Paul Ernst's Avenger novels, the 14 Whisperer novels from the original pulp series and all but three novels of the entire run of The Shadow (most of his publications featuring two novels in one book). Paperback books A paperback ( softcover , softback ) book
2640-401: Is not expected to be a major seller and the publisher wishes to release the book without a large investment. Examples include many novels and newer editions or reprintings of older books. Because paperbacks tend to have smaller profit margins , many publishers try to balance the profit to be made by selling fewer hardcovers against the potential profit to be made by selling more paperbacks with
2728-434: Is not usually applied to original non–fiction publications, although paperback publishers also began issuing original non–fiction titles. Fawcett, an independent newsstand distributor, in 1945, negotiated a contract with New American Library to distribute its Mentor and Signet titles. That contract prohibited Fawcett from becoming a competitor by publishing its own paperback reprints. Roscoe Kent Fawcett wanted to establish
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2816-468: Is one with a thick paper or paperboard cover, and often held together with glue rather than stitches or staples . In contrast, hardback (hardcover) books are bound with cardboard covered with cloth, leather, paper, or plastic. Inexpensive books bound in paper have existed since at least the 19th century in such forms as pamphlets , yellowbacks , dime novels , and airport novels . Modern paperbacks can be differentiated from one another by size. In
2904-451: Is particularly true of first novels by new authors. The mass-market paperbacks sold in airport newsstands have given rise to the vaguely defined literary genre of the " airport novel ", bought by travelers to read while they sit and wait. Mass-market paperbacks also have offered collections of comic strips and magazine cartoon series, such as Ernie Bushmiller 's Nancy and Chon Day 's Brother Sebastian . The term B-format indicates
2992-472: Is the soft binding; the paper is usually of higher quality than that of a mass-market paperback, often being acid-free paper . In the United States, the term trade paperback also encompasses the medium-sized paperbacks described as B-format, above. British trade paperbacks are 135 mm × 216 mm ( 5 + 3 ⁄ 8 in × 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 in). Trade paperbacks did not enter
3080-515: The Nobel Prize in Literature , worked as an editor for Adventure , writing filler paragraphs (brief facts or amusing anecdotes designed to fill small gaps in page layout), advertising copy and a few stories. The term pulp fiction is often used for massmarket paperbacks since the 1950s. The Browne Popular Culture Library News noted: Many of the paperback houses that contributed to the decline of
3168-458: The Penguin Books imprint. They adopted many of Albatross's innovations, including a conspicuous logo, using only type on the cover, and color-coded covers for different genres. The first book on Penguin's 1935 list was André Maurois ' Ariel . Lane intended to produce inexpensive books. He purchased paperback rights from publishers, ordered large print runs (such as 20,000 copies—large for
3256-692: The 1920s–1940s, the most successful pulps sold up to one million copies per issue. In 1934, Frank Gruber said there were some 150 pulp titles. 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 , Dime Detective , Flying Aces , Horror Stories , Love Story Magazine , Marvel Tales , Oriental Stories , Planet Stories , Spicy Detective , Startling Stories , Thrilling Wonder Stories , Unknown , Weird Tales and Western Story Magazine . During
3344-438: The 1940s. The books measured 6.5" by 4.25" (16.5 cm by 10.8 cm), had full-color covers, and cost 25 cents. Eventually in the 1950s the height increased by 0.5" (1.4 cm) to 7" (18 cm). The width remained the same because wire display racks used in many locations could not hold wider books. With the larger size came a higher price, first 35 cents and then 50 cents. Because of its number-one position in what became
3432-535: The 1950s. Pulp magazines often contained a wide variety of genre fiction , including, but not limited to: The American Old West was a mainstay genre of early turn of the 20th-century novels as well as later pulp magazines, and lasted longest of all the traditional pulps. In many ways, the later men's adventure ("the sweats") was the replacement of pulps. Many classic science fiction and crime novels were originally serialized in pulp magazines such as Weird Tales , Amazing Stories , and Black Mask . While
3520-740: The 7" height simultaneously with Houghton Mifflin 's $ 3.00 hardcover edition, was a success for both publishers. Of their next nine novels, two were published simultaneously by Houghton Mifflin and one by Farrar, Straus & Young and six were stand-alone originals. In 1953, Dell announced its line of originals, Dell First Editions, and published its first novels by Walt Grove, Frederic Brown , and Charles Einstein . Genre categories began to emerge, and mass-market book covers reflected those categories. Mass-market paperbacks influenced slick and pulp magazines . The market for cheap magazines diminished when buyers began to buy cheap books instead. Authors also found themselves abandoning magazines and writing for
3608-521: The Amazon Queen by E.A. Guest, their first contribution to a "New Pulp Era", featuring the hallmarks of pulp fiction for contemporary mature readers: violence, horror and sex. E.A. Guest was likened to a blend of pulp era icon Talbot Mundy and Stephen King by real-life explorer David Hatcher Childress. In 2002, the tenth issue of McSweeney's Quarterly was guest edited by Michael Chabon . Published as McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales , it
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3696-465: The American market until around 1960. Unlike mass-market paperbacks they are distributed by their original hard-cover publishers directly to book stores, not through magazine distributors to other retailers. Trade paperbacks are often used to reprint several issues of a comic series in one volume, usually an important storyline or the entire series, and the name trade paperback has become synonymous with
3784-580: The Canadian mass-market book trade in the early 1960s, with its "Canadian best seller library" series, at a time when Canadian literary culture was beginning to be popularized, and a call for a Canadian author identity was discussed by the Canadian people. The mass-market paperback is a small, usually non-illustrated, inexpensive bookbinding format. This includes the A-format books of 110 mm × 178 mm ( 4 + 3 ⁄ 8 in × 7 in), in
3872-510: The Collection of British and American Authors in 1841. These inexpensive, paperbound editions, a direct precursor to mass-market paperbacks, eventually ran to over 5,000 volumes. Reclam published Shakespeare in this format from October 1857 and went on to pioneer the mass market paperbound Universal-Bibliothek series from 10 November 1867. The German publisher Albatross Books revised the 20th-century mass-market paperback format in 1931, but
3960-464: The North American market. To reach an even broader market than Lane, he used distributors of newspapers and magazines to distribute his books because they had a lengthy history of being aimed (in format and distribution) at mass audiences. Pocket Books were not available in book stores because they did not carry magazines. Pocket Books established the format for all subsequent paperback publishers in
4048-662: The United Kingdom, and the "pocketbook" format books of a similar size, in the United States. Mass-market paperbacks usually are printed on cheap paper. They are commonly released after the hardback edition and often sold not only at bookstores, but also where books are not the main business, such as at airports , drugstores , and supermarkets. In 1982, romance novels accounted for at least 25% of all paperback sales. In 2013, 51% of paperback sales were romance. Many titles, especially in genre fiction, have their first editions in paperback and are never published in hardcover; this
4136-736: The United States, Robert de Graaf created the Pocket Books label in 1939, partnering with Simon & Schuster to issue a similar line of reprints. Because at first Pocket Books was the only publisher of paperbacks, the term "pocket book" became synonymous with paperback in English-speaking North America. (In France, the term livre de poche , which translates as "pocket book", was used and is still in use today.) De Graaf, like Lane, negotiated paperback rights from other publishers, and produced many runs. His practices contrasted with those of Lane by his adoption of illustrated covers aimed at
4224-454: The United States, in every local grocery store, drug store, dime store , and bus and train station, displaying everything from best sellers and mysteries and westerns to classics and Shakespeare. In 1955, in William Inge 's Broadway play Bus Stop , it did not seem unbelievable that a long-distance bus traveller stranded by a snowstorm in an out-of-the-way cafe walks to a shelf and picks up
4312-404: The United States, there are "mass-market paperbacks" and larger, more durable "trade paperbacks". In the United Kingdom, there are A-format, B-format, and the largest C-format sizes. Paperback editions of books are issued when a publisher decides to release a book in a low-cost format. Lower-quality paper, glued (rather than stapled or sewn) bindings, and the lack of a hard cover may contribute to
4400-653: The annual pulp magazine convention that had begun in 1972. The magazine, devoted to the history and legacy of the pulp magazines, has published each year since. It now appears in connection with PulpFest , the summer pulp convention that grew out of and replaced Pulpcon. The Pulpster was originally edited by Tony Davis and is currently edited by William Lampkin, who also runs the website ThePulp.Net. Contributors have included Don Hutchison, Robert Sampson, Will Murray , Al Tonik, Nick Carr, Mike Resnick , Hugh B. Cave , Joseph Wrzos, Jessica Amanda Salmonson , Chet Williamson , and many others. In 1992, Rich W. Harvey came out with
4488-482: The approach of World War II cut the experiment short. Albatross's innovations included a standardized size, use of new sans-serif fonts, use of logo and type on the cover without an illustration, and color-coding the covers by genre. In 1935, British publisher Allen Lane , investing his own capital, initiated the paperback revolution in the English-language book market by releasing ten reprint titles to launch
SECTION 50
#17328550647924576-428: The art was black lines on the paper's background, but Finlay and a few others did some work that was primarily white lines against large dark areas. Another way pulps kept costs down was by paying authors less than other markets; thus many eminent authors started out in the pulps before they were successful enough to sell to better-paying markets, and similarly, well-known authors whose careers were slumping or who wanted
4664-513: The authors featured on the interior pages. Among the most famous pulp artists were Walter M. Baumhofer , Earle K. Bergey , Margaret Brundage , Edd Cartier , Virgil Finlay , Frank R. Paul , Norman Saunders , Emmett Watson , Nick Eggenhofer , (who specialized in Western illustrations), Hugh J. Ward , George Rozen , and Rudolph Belarski . Covers were important enough to sales that sometimes they would be designed first; authors would then be shown
4752-399: The book. A revolving metal rack (invented in 1906), designed to display a wide variety of paperbacks in a small space, found its way into drugstores , dimestores , and markets. During World War II, the U.S. military distributed some 122 million " Armed Services Editions " paperback novels to the troops. After the war, the former servicemembers' familiarity with paperbacks helped popularize
4840-662: The companies while Coyne acted as a silent partner and business manager. Meanwhile, Silberkleit and Coyne had started Columbia Publications in late 1937. Columbia's first titles were Western pulps: Western Yarns debuted in January 1938 and Complete Cowboy in January 1939. Beginning with the June 1940 issue, Columbia took over publication of Western Action from Winford Publications. The same happened in November 1940 with Double Action Western Magazine and Real Western . Editor Charles Hornig
4928-568: The company also published some paperback novels, primarily in the science fiction genre. Columbia Publications was the most prolific of a number of pulp imprints operated in the 1930s by Louis Silberkleit . Nominally, their offices were in Springfield, Massachusetts and Holyoke, Massachusetts (the addresses of their printers, binders, and mailers for subscriptions), but they were actually produced out of 60 Hudson Street in New York City. Louis Silberkleit and Maurice Coyne (two out of three of
5016-487: The cover art and asked to write a story to match. Later pulps began to feature interior illustrations, depicting elements of the stories. The drawings were printed in black ink on the same cream-colored paper used for the text, and had to use specific techniques to avoid blotting on the coarse texture of the cheap pulp. Thus, fine lines and heavy detail were usually not an option. Shading was by crosshatching or pointillism , and even that had to be limited and coarse. Usually
5104-426: The cover price rose to 15 cents and 30 pages were added to each issue; along with establishing a stable of authors for each magazine, this change proved successful and circulation began to approach that of Argosy . Street and Smith's next innovation was the introduction of specialized genre pulps, with each magazine focusing on a particular genre, such as detective stories, romance, etc. At their peak of popularity in
5192-448: The direct precursors of pulp fiction. The first "pulp" was Frank Munsey 's revamped Argosy magazine of 1896, with about 135,000 words (192 pages) per issue, on pulp paper with untrimmed edges, and no illustrations, even on the cover. The steam-powered printing press had been in widespread use for some time, enabling the boom in dime novels; prior to Munsey, however, no one had combined cheap printing, cheap paper and cheap authors in
5280-468: The dominant form of mass entertainment in the 1950s, the pulps suffered from slumping sales. In February 1960, when Columbia's distributor refused to carry any more of the company's titles, that signaled the end of Columbia Publications. Silberkleit, Coyne, and fellow Archie founder John L. Goldwater immediately founded Belmont Books , a low-rent paperback publisher devoted to science fiction, horror, and mystery titles. In its early years, Belmont published
5368-735: The economic hardships of the Great Depression , pulps provided affordable content to the masses, and were one of the primary forms of entertainment, along with film and radio . Although pulp magazines were primarily an American phenomenon, there were also a number of British pulp magazines published between the Edwardian era and World War II . Notable UK pulps included The Pall Mall Magazine , The Novel Magazine , Cassell's Magazine , The Story-Teller , The Sovereign Magazine , Hutchinson's Adventure-Story and Hutchinson's Mystery-Story . The German fantasy magazine Der Orchideengarten had
SECTION 60
#17328550647925456-466: The end of the "pulp era"; by that date, many of the famous pulps of the previous generation, including Black Mask, The Shadow , Doc Savage , and Weird Tales , were defunct (though some of those titles have been revived in various formats in the decades since). Almost all of the few remaining former pulp magazines are science fiction or mystery magazines, now in formats similar to " digest size ", such as Analog Science Fiction and Fact , though
5544-506: The first four Gold Medal books, original novels by W. R. Burnett , Sax Rohmer , Richard Himmel, and John Flagg - one western and three mysteries/adventure novels. Fawcett's action led to immediate controversy, with an executive Vice president of Pocket Books attacking the whole idea, a literary agent reporting that one hardcover publisher threatened to boycott his agency if he dealt with mass market publishers, and Doubleday 's LeBaron R. Barker claiming that paperback originals could "undermine
5632-441: The format. Two new developments changed the nature of the mass-market paperback business. One was the decision by publishers to publish more recent best selling books than the older books originally published by Pocket Book. They sought reprint rights on new books and soon found themselves in competition for the biggest sellers, leading to bidding against each other for the rights and costing them more money. The second development
5720-570: The front and back cover) longer than Argosy . Due to differences in page layout however, the magazine had substantially less text than Argosy . The Popular Magazine did introduce color covers to pulp publishing, and the magazine began to take off when in 1905 the publishers acquired the rights to serialize Ayesha (1905), by H. Rider Haggard , a sequel to his popular novel She (1887). Haggard's Lost World genre influenced several key pulp writers, including Edgar Rice Burroughs , Robert E. Howard , Talbot Mundy and Abraham Merritt . In 1907,
5808-951: The genre–Ace, Dell, Avon, among others–were actually started by pulp magazine publishers. They had the presses, the expertise, and the newsstand distribution networks which made the success of the mass-market paperback possible. These pulp-oriented paperback houses mined the old magazines for reprints. This kept pulp literature, if not pulp magazines, alive. The Return of the Continental Op reprints material first published in Black Mask ; Five Sinister Characters contains stories first published in Dime Detective ; and The Pocket Book of Science Fiction collects material from Thrilling Wonder Stories , Astounding Science Fiction and Amazing Stories . But note that mass market paperbacks are not pulps. In 1991, The Pulpster debuted at that year's Pulpcon ,
5896-405: The impermanence of paperbacks by telling readers if you "enjoyed it so much you may wish to own it in a more permanent edition", they could return the 25 cent book to Pocket Books with an additional 70 cents and it would send them a copy of the 95 cent Modern Library edition "substantially bound in durable cloth." Since the mid-20th century, paperbacks can also be the preferred medium when a book
5984-666: The kind of boy-meets-girl story that can be illustrated by a ripe cheesecake jacket [cover]". The next year Dell Publishing , which was founded in 1921 by George T. Delacorte Jr. to publish pulp magazines , joined with Western Publishing to publish Dell Books . Like Avon, Dell followed the basic format established by Pocket Books. But within that format, "Dell achieved more variety than any of its early competitors [with its] . . . instantly identifiable format of vibrant airbrushed covers for its predominantly genre fiction", specialized logos and special features like maps and lists of characters. World War II brought both new technology and
6072-458: The lower cost of paperbacks. In the early days of modern paperbacks, the 1930s and 1940s, they were sold as a cheaper, less permanent, and more convenient alternative to traditional hardcover books, as the name of the first American paperback publisher, Pocket Books, indicates. In addition, the Pocket Books edition of Wuthering Heights , one of the first ten books it published in 1939, emphasized
6160-682: The majority of pulp magazines were anthology titles featuring many different authors, characters and settings, some of the most enduring magazines were those that featured a single recurring character. These were often referred to as "hero pulps" because the recurring character was almost always a larger-than-life hero in the mold of Doc Savage or The Shadow . Popular pulp characters that headlined in their own magazines: Popular pulp characters who appeared in anthology titles such as All-Story or Weird Tales : Pulp covers were printed in color on higher-quality (slick) paper. They were famous for their half-dressed damsels in distress , usually awaiting
6248-454: The market - Lion Books and Pyramid Books (both 1949), Fawcett Gold Medal Books (1950), Ace Books and Ballantine Books (both 1952), and Berkley Books (1955). U.S. paperbacks quickly entered the Canadian market. Canadian mass-market paperback initiatives in the 1940s included White Circle Books, a subsidiary of Collins (UK.); it was fairly successful but was soon outstripped by the success of Harlequin which began in 1949 and, after
6336-537: The men who later founded MLJ Magazines ( Archie Comic Publications )) started publishing pulps in Sept. 1934 with the publisher brand Winford Publications and the title Double Action Western Magazine , soon joined by Real Western . The two men launched the Northwest Publishing imprint in 1935, Chesterfield Publications in 1936, Blue Ribbon Magazines in 1937, and Double Action Magazines in 1938. Silberkleit ran
6424-414: The mid-1930s to 1960, Columbia's most notable magazines were the science fiction pulps Future Science Fiction , Science Fiction , and Science Fiction Quarterly . Other long-running titles included Double Action Western Magazine , Real Western , Western Action , Famous Western , Today's Love Stories , Super Sports , and Double Action Detective and Mystery Stories . In addition to pulp magazines,
6512-594: The most durable revival of Weird Tales began in pulp format, though published on good-quality paper. The old format is still in use for some lengthy serials, like the German science fiction weekly Perry Rhodan (over 3,000 issues as of 2019). Over the course of their evolution, there were a huge number of pulp magazine titles; Harry Steeger of Popular Publications claimed that his company alone had published over 300, and at their peak they were publishing 42 titles per month. Many titles of course survived only briefly. While
6600-519: The most popular titles were monthly, many were bimonthly and some were quarterly. The collapse of the pulp industry changed the landscape of publishing because pulps were the single largest sales outlet for short stories. Combined with the decrease in slick magazine fiction markets, writers trying to support themselves by creating fiction switched to novels and book-length anthologies of shorter pieces. Some ex-pulp writers like Hugh B. Cave and Robert Leslie Bellem had moved on to writing for television by
6688-415: The paperback market. The leading paperback publishers often hired experienced pulp magazine cover artists, including Rudolph Belarski and Earle K. Bergey , who helped create the look and feel of paperbacks and set an appealing visual standard that continues to this day. Scores of well-known authors were published in paperback, including Arthur Miller and John Steinbeck . McClelland and Stewart entered
6776-433: The pulp magazines of the early 20th century. These included Blood 'N Thunder , High Adventure and a short-lived magazine which revived the title Argosy . These specialist publications, printed in limited press runs, were pointedly not printed on the brittle, high-acid wood pulp paper of the old publications and were not mass market publications targeted at a wide audience. In 2004, Lost Continent Library published Secret of
6864-489: The pulps ") were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 until around 1955. The term "pulp" derives from the wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed, due to their cheap nature. In contrast, magazines printed on higher-quality paper were called "glossies" or "slicks". The typical pulp magazine had 128 pages; it was 7 inches (18 cm) wide by 10 inches (25 cm) high, and 0.5 inches (1.3 cm) thick, with ragged, untrimmed edges. Pulps were
6952-530: The pulps' market share, but it has been suggested the widespread expansion of television also drew away the readership of the pulps. In a more affluent post-war America, the price gap compared to slick magazines was far less significant. In the 1950s, men's adventure magazines also began to draw some former pulp readers. The 1957 liquidation of the American News Company , then the primary distributor of pulp magazines, has sometimes been taken as marking
7040-672: The successors to the penny dreadfuls , dime novels , and short-fiction magazines of the 19th century. Although many respected writers wrote for pulps, the magazines were best known for their lurid, exploitative , and sensational subject matter, even though this was but a small part of what existed in the pulps. Digest magazines and men's adventure magazines were also regarded as pulps. 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 . The pulps gave rise to
7128-464: The term pulp fiction in reference to run-of-the-mill, low-quality literature. Successors of pulps include paperback books, such as hardboiled detective stories and erotic fiction . Before pulp magazines, Newgate novels (1840s-1860s) fictionalized the exploits of real-life criminals. Later, British sensation novels gained peak popularity in the 1860s-1870s. Sensation novels focused on shocking stories that reflected modern-day anxieties, and were
7216-467: The time) to keep unit prices low, and looked to non-traditional book-selling retail locations. Booksellers were initially reluctant to buy his books, but when Woolworths placed a large order, the books sold extremely well. After that initial success, booksellers showed more willingness to stock paperbacks, and the name "Penguin" became closely associated with the word "paperback" in Great Britain. In
7304-460: The whole structure of publishing." Sales soared, prompting Gold Medal editorial director Ralph Daigh to comment later, "In the past six months we have produced 9,020,645 books, and people seem to like them very well." In 1950 Gold Medal published 35 titles, in 1952, 66. Other paperback publishers saw Gold Medal's success and began to emulate it. Publishers Weekly reported in May 1952 that Avon had included three originals in its April releases and
7392-626: Was New American Library . Originally Penguin USA, it became a separate publisher in 1948 as the New American Library of World Literature when it separated from Penguin and Victor Weybright and Kurt Enoch took over. Its original focus was classics and scholarly works as well as popular and pulp fiction. Eventually it shortened its name to New American Library and published books in the Mentor and Signet lines. New paperback publishers continued to enter
7480-679: Was hired in October 1938. He had no office; he worked from home, coming into the office as needed to drop off manuscripts and dummy materials, and pick up typeset materials to proof. He was given broad freedom to select what he wanted to publish; he reported to Silberkleit's chief editor, Abner J. Sundell . In 1941, Silberkleit essentially consolidated all his pulp publishing companies under the Columbia Publications umbrella. Extant titles Columbia took on that year included Famous Western , Science Fiction , Hooded Detective (started in 1938 under
7568-456: Was seeking more. It added that Dell was " 'thinking about' some systematic programs of original publishing," Lion Books had "a definite original publishing program in the works", and that Graphic had begun publishing originals about a year earlier. Bantam, Pocket Books, and New American Library said they were not going to publish originals. Also in 1952, Ace began publishing Ace Double Novel Books, two books printed in one volume for 35 cents, one
7656-851: Was that they paid upon acceptance for material instead of on publication. Since a story might be accepted months or even years before publication, to a working writer this was a crucial difference in cash flow . Some pulp editors became known for cultivating good fiction and interesting features in their magazines. Preeminent pulp magazine editors included Arthur Sullivant Hoffman ( Adventure ), Robert H. Davis ( All-Story Weekly ), Harry E. Maule ( Short Stories ), Donald Kennicott ( Blue Book ), Joseph Shaw ( Black Mask ), Farnsworth Wright ( Weird Tales , Oriental Stories ), John W. Campbell ( Astounding Science Fiction , Unknown ) and Daisy Bacon ( Love Story Magazine , Detective Story Magazine ). Well-known authors who wrote for pulps include: Sinclair Lewis , first American winner of
7744-475: Was the spinner rack , a metal pole with a four-sided wire frame designed to vertically hold rows of racks of paperback books. Retail store owners no longer had to devote feet of valuable counter space to low-profit paperbacks. Dozens of paperbacks could be displayed vertically in five or six square feet of floor space. (Similar racks were available for magazines and comic books.) By the late 1940s, paperback spinner racks were ubiquitous in large and small towns across
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