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80-428: Unknown (also known as Unknown Worlds ) was an American pulp fantasy fiction magazine , published from 1939 to 1943 by Street & Smith , and edited by John W. Campbell . Unknown was a companion to Street & Smith's science fiction pulp, Astounding Science Fiction , which was also edited by Campbell at the time; many authors and illustrators contributed to both magazines. The leading fantasy magazine in

160-414: 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

240-424: 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

320-417: A frequent Astounding contributor, appeared in the final issue with "The Book of Ptath" (later expanded into a novel). Isaac Asimov , despite multiple attempts to write for Unknown , never appeared in the magazine. On his sixth attempt, he sold " Author! Author! " to Campbell, but the magazine was canceled before it could appear. It eventually appeared in the anthology The Unknown Five . In addition to

400-444: A horror story. Horror stories, he said, had a place, but "horror injected with a sharp and poisoned needle is just as effective as when applied with the blunt-instrument technique of the so-called Gothic horror tale". Campbell insisted on the same rational approach to fantasy that he required of his science fiction writers, and in the words of Clareson, this led to the destruction of "not only the prevalent narrative tone but also most of

480-449: A humorous fantasy about a New Yorker who meets a water gnome . Gold's story was the first of many in Unknown to combine commonplace reality with the fantastic. Campbell required his authors to avoid simplistic horror fiction and insisted that the fantasy elements in a story be developed logically: for example, Jack Williamson 's Darker Than You Think describes a world in which there is

560-483: 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 ,

640-565: A man who discovers that all women are secretly witches, was the lead story in the April 1943 issue. The protagonist, a university professor, "is forced to abandon scepticism and discover the underlying equations of magic, via symbolic logic", in critic David Langford's description. Leiber also contributed "Smoke Ghost" in October 1941, described by Ashley as "arguably the first seriously modern ghost story". Another writer whose first story appeared in Unknown

720-512: A newborn child. He returned on compassionate leave (possibly in May 1946 ) to be at his dying father Henry's bedside in Fall River, Massachusetts . He had been offered directorship of Armed Forces Radio postwar, which he declined. After serving, he returned to New York City, where he scripted for comic books and radio programs. Gold's story "The Old Die Rich" ( Galaxy Science Fiction , March 1953), written at

800-435: 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

880-454: 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

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960-498: 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

1040-457: A scientific explanation for the existence of werewolves . Similarly, L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt 's Harold Shea series, about a modern American who finds himself in the worlds of various mythologies, depicts a system of magic based on mathematical logic. Other notable works included several novels by L. Ron Hubbard and short stories such as Manly Wade Wellman 's "When It Was Moonlight" and Fritz Leiber 's " Two Sought Adventure ",

1120-662: 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

1200-450: A water gnome; in its whimsicality and naturalistic merging of a modern background with a classic fantasy trope, "Trouble with Water" was a better indication than Sinister Barrier of the direction Unknown would take. Campbell commented in a letter at the time that Sinister Barrier , "Trouble with Water", and " 'Where Angels Fear ... ' " by Manly Wade Wellman were the only stories in the first issue that accurately reflected his goals for

1280-521: 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

1360-659: Is an artist, writer, and musician. After becoming editor of Galaxy Gold wrote that as a "dazzled boy" he "discovered science fiction in 1927, at the age of 13": Amazing Stories had been out for a year then, but it was Wells ' War of the Worlds , sitting innocently on a Providence library shelf, that I found first. The personal impact was that of an explosive harpoon, and when I belatedly discovered those beautifully garish Paul covers, decorated with heroically paralyzed men in jodhpurs and simperingly paralyzed women in blowy veils, among giant insects and plants with leering heads, I

1440-480: 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). Horace L. Gold H. L. Gold

1520-515: 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

1600-448: 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 the successors to the penny dreadfuls , dime novels , and short-fiction magazines of

1680-692: 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

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1760-520: The 1930s had established itself and was regularly publishing science fiction (SF) as well as fantasy. Weird Tales was the first magazine to focus solely on fantasy, and it remained the pre-eminent magazine in this field for over a decade. In the meantime, science fiction was starting to form a separately marketed genre, with the appearance in 1926 of Amazing Stories , a pulp magazine edited by Hugo Gernsback . In 1930 pulp publisher Clayton Publications launched Astounding Stories of Super Science , but

1840-497: The 1930s was Weird Tales , which focused on shock and horror. Campbell wanted to publish a fantasy magazine with more finesse and humor than Weird Tales , and put his plans into action when Eric Frank Russell sent him the manuscript of his novel Sinister Barrier , about aliens who own the human race. Unknown ' s first issue appeared in March 1939; in addition to Sinister Barrier , it included H. L. Gold 's "Trouble With Water",

1920-535: 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

2000-585: 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

2080-521: 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

2160-694: The Campbell pen-name for his first half-dozen or so stories in 1934/35. When he resumed his writing career in 1938 he took the billing Horace L. Gold, but soon shortened it to the now more familiar H. L. Gold. Gold's most noted stories tended more toward fantasy, like his "Trouble with Water" ( Unknown , March 1939). In 1939–41 he was an assistant editor on a trio of science fiction magazines – Captain Future , Thrilling Wonder Stories and Startling Stories . His 1939 novel, None But Lucifer in Unknown (September 1939)

2240-653: 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

2320-428: 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

2400-513: 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

2480-454: The change to a text-heavy design. Unknown was, along with Weird Tales , an important early influence on the fantasy genre. In the foreword to From Unknown Worlds , in 1948, Campbell commented that fantasy before Unknown had been too much infused with "gloom and terror"; his approach in Unknown had been to assume that the "creatures of mythology and folklore" could be characters in an amusing tale as easily as they could be made part of

Unknown (magazine) - Misplaced Pages Continue

2560-414: The change to bedsheet size; it remained at 25 cents when the size changed back to pulp. It had 164 pages when pulp-sized and 130 pages while it was bedsheet-sized. It began as a monthly and switched to bimonthly from December 1940 on. The volume numbering was regular, with six volumes of six numbers and a final volume of three numbers. The title began as simply Unknown . In December 1940 " Fantasy Fiction "

2640-437: The coming Dark Ages; Edwards and Clute comment that the story is "the most accomplished early excursion into history in magazine SF, and is regarded as a classic". Also highly regarded is Wellman's "When It Was Moonlight" (December 1940), a story about Poe. The first sixteen issues of Unknown had cover paintings, but from July 1940 the cover style was changed to a table of contents, with a small ink drawing usually accompanying

2720-472: The company's bankruptcy in 1933 led to the acquisition of the magazine by Street & Smith . The title was shortened to Astounding Stories , and it became the leading magazine in the science fiction field over the next few years under the editorship of F. Orlin Tremaine . At the end of 1937, John W. Campbell took over as editor. By 1938, Campbell was planning a fantasy companion to Astounding : Weird Tales

2800-487: 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

2880-426: 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

2960-448: 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

3040-497: The early 1960s. The Unknown Five includes four stories reprinted from Unknown and the first print appearance of " Author! Author! ", by Isaac Asimov, which was sold to Unknown shortly before Street & Smith shut it down. Two additional Unknown anthologies were published in the late 1980s. Pulp magazine Pulp magazines (also referred to as " the pulps ") were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 until around 1955. The term "pulp" derives from

3120-735: 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

3200-466: 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

3280-453: The first in his Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series. Unknown was forced to a bimonthly schedule in 1941 by poor sales and canceled in 1943 when wartime paper shortages became so acute that Campbell had to choose between turning Astounding into a bimonthly or ending Unknown . The magazine is generally regarded as the finest fantasy fiction magazine ever published, despite the fact that it

Unknown (magazine) - Misplaced Pages Continue

3360-485: The former to a bimonthly schedule as well. The last issue was dated October 1943. Campbell's plans for Unknown were laid out in the February 1939 issue of Astounding , in the announcement of the new magazine. He argued that "it has been the quality of the fantasy that you have read in the past that has made the very word anathema ... [ Unknown ] will offer fantasy of a quality so far different from that which has appeared in

3440-570: 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,

3520-951: 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 ,

3600-474: The magazine. Under Campbell's editorial supervision, the fantasy element in Unknown stories had to be treated rigorously. This naturally led to the appearance in Unknown of writers already comfortable with similar rigor in science fiction stories, and Campbell soon established a small group of writers as regular contributors, many of whom were also appearing in the pages of Astounding . L. Ron Hubbard , Theodore Sturgeon , and L. Sprague de Camp were among

3680-518: The magazine. He suffered from increasing agoraphobia (originating from war trauma), and retired from Galaxy in 1961 due to his health problems. Gold lived the rest of his life in seclusion, though he published occasional short stories and guest editorials through the early 1980s. His collection The Old Die Rich (Crown, 1955) includes "And Three to Get Ready", "At the Post", "The Biography Project" (as Dudley Dell), "Don't Take It to Heart", "Hero", "Love in

3760-682: 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

3840-561: The modern genre of fantasy, though commercial success for the genre had to wait until the 1970s. Clareson also suggests that Unknown influenced the science fiction that appeared in Astounding after Unknown folded. According to this view, stories such as Clifford Simak 's City series would not have appeared without the destruction of genre boundaries that Campbell oversaw. Clareson further proposes that Galaxy Science Fiction and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction , two of

3920-594: 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

4000-743: The most important and successful science fiction and fantasy magazines, were direct descendants of Unknown . Unknown is widely regarded as the finest fantasy magazine ever published: Ashley says, for example, that " Unknown published without doubt the greatest collection of fantasy stories produced in one magazine." Despite its lack of commercial success, Unknown is the most lamented of all science fiction and fantasy magazines; Lester del Rey describes it as having gained "a devotion from its readers that no other magazine can match". Edwards comments that Unknown "appeared during Campbell's peak years as an editor; its reputation may stand as high as it does partly because it died while still at its best". Unknown

4080-519: 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

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4160-603: The most prolific. Hubbard contributed eight lead novels including Typewriter in the Sky , Slaves of Sleep , and Fear , described by Ashley as a "classic psychological thriller"; SF historian and critic Thomas Clareson describes all eight as "outstanding". De Camp, in collaboration with Fletcher Pratt , contributed three stories featuring Harold Shea , who finds himself in a world where magic operates by rigorous rules. The title of one of these, "The Mathematics of Magic", is, according to SF critic John Clute , "perfectly expressive of

4240-563: The original, too many copies were returned for the publisher to be willing to revive the magazine. The issue was reprinted in Britain in 1952, reduced in size to 7 by 9.5 inches (180 mm × 240 mm) and cut from 130 pages to 124; it was priced at 2/6 (two shillings and six pence). Part of the run was issued in a hardcover binding at a higher price. One story from the U.S. version was omitted: "One Man's Harp" by Babette Rosmond . Three anthologies of stories from Unknown were published in

4320-472: The overlap between the writers of Unknown and Astounding , there was a good deal of overlap between their readerships: Asimov records that during the war, he read only these two magazines. SF historian Paul Carter has argued that the spectrum of fantastic fiction from Weird Tales through Unknown to Astounding was far less cleanly separated than is sometimes assumed: many stories in the early science fiction magazines such as Wonder Stories were more like

4400-429: The past as to change your entire understanding of the term". The first issue, the following month, led with Russell's Sinister Barrier , the novel that had persuaded Campbell to set his plans for a fantasy magazine into motion: the plot, involving aliens who own the human race, has been described by SF historian Mike Ashley as "a strange mixture of science fiction and occult fantasy". Campbell asked Russell for revisions to

4480-433: 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

4560-530: 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

4640-479: The results were worth it". With Galaxy Gold created a different kind of science fiction magazine by focusing less on technology, hardware and pulp adventures. Instead, he introduced themes leaning toward sociology, psychology and satire. He paid more than was common at the time and had the advantage that several talented authors had become alienated from John W. Campbell due to his enthusiasm for Dianetics . Gold also edited several anthologies (1952–62) related to

4720-595: The same time as Marcia Davenport 's My Brother's Keeper , may have been inspired by the New York Times articles about the Collyer brothers as was Davenport's novel. Gold often found story ideas in newspaper clippings. H. L. Gold is perhaps best known as a leading magazine editor during the American post-World War II science fiction boom. In 1949 he began in that direction, and launched Galaxy Science Fiction in 1950, which

4800-407: The schedule became quite irregular, with two or three issues appearing each year until 1949. The volume numbering initially followed the corresponding U.S. editions, with some omitted numbers in 1942 and 1943, and then disappeared for four issues; from the twenty-eighth issue (Spring 1945) the magazine was numbered as if it had been given volumes of twelve numbers since the start of the run. The title

4880-461: The story to emphasize the fantastic elements but still demanded that Russell work out the logical implications of his premises. This became a defining characteristic of the fiction published in Unknown ; in Ashley's words, Campbell "brought the science fiction rationale to fantasy". The first issue also contained Horace L. Gold 's "Trouble with Water", a comic fantasy about a modern New Yorker who offends

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4960-491: The summary of each story, in an attempt to make the magazine appear more dignified. The cover art came almost entirely from artists who did not contribute to many science fiction or fantasy magazines: six of the sixteen paintings were by H. W. Scott ; Manuel Islip, Modest Stein , Graves Gladney , and Edd Cartier provided the others. Cartier was the only one of these who regularly contributed to SF and fantasy periodicals; he painted four of Unknown ' s last six covers before

5040-464: 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

5120-479: The terms under which magic found easy mention in Unknown ". Other Astounding writers who wrote for Unknown included Robert A. Heinlein , whose "The Devil Makes the Law" (reprinted as " Magic, Inc. ") depicts a world where magic is a part of everyday life. Heinlein also contributed " The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag " and " They ", described by Ashley as "perhaps the ultimate solipsist fantasy". A.E. van Vogt ,

5200-579: The trappings that had dominated fantasy from The Castle of Otranto and The Monk through the nineteenth century to Weird Tales ". Unknown quickly separated itself from Weird Tales , whose fantasies still primarily aimed to produce fear or shock. The closest predecessor to Unknown was Thorne Smith , whose prohibition-era "Topper" stories also mixed fantasy with humor. Before Unknown , fantasy had received little serious attention, though on occasion writers such as James Branch Cabell had achieved respectability. In Ashley's opinion, Unknown created

5280-529: The two protagonists' relationship is "depicted with a tortured (and still haunting) erotic frankness unusual in genre literature of the 1940s". In addition to the Harold Shea pieces, de Camp published several other well-received stories, including "The Wheels of If" (October 1940) and " Lest Darkness Fall " (December 1939), an alternate history story about a time-traveler who attempts to save the Roman Empire from

5360-521: The works of Edgar Allan Poe than they were tales of scientific imagination. Fritz Leiber 's first published story was "Two Sought Adventure", which appeared in the August 1939 issue of Unknown ; this was the first story in his long-running Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series about a pair of adventurers in a sword and sorcery setting. Four more Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories appeared in Unknown in as many years, and Leiber's novel Conjure Wife , about

5440-419: Was James H. Schmitz , whose "Greenface" appeared in the August 1943 issue. Other notable stories that appeared in Unknown include Jack Williamson's "Darker Than You Think" (December 1940), which provides a scientific basis for a race of werewolves living undetected alongside human beings. Expanded into a novel in 1948, it remains Williamson's best-known fantasy, and SF historian Malcolm Edwards comments that

5520-410: Was a collaboration with L. Sprague de Camp . During the early 1940s, Gold teamed with Kendell Foster Crossen on comic book scripts, freelancing with DC Comics writing for Batman , Superman , Superboy , Boy Commandos and Wonder Woman from "roughly the end of 1942" until World War II interrupted his career. He was drafted in 1944, although he was Canadian, flatfooted, overage and had

5600-469: Was a monthly at first, but poor sales forced a switch to a bimonthly schedule beginning in February 1941. In December 1940, the subtitle Fantasy Fiction was added, and in October 1941, the main title was changed to Unknown Worlds ; both changes were intended to make the genre of the magazine clearer to potential readers. When wartime paper shortages became severe in late 1943, Campbell chose to keep Astounding monthly and cancel Unknown , rather than switch

5680-505: Was added as a subtitle, and from the October 1941 issue the title became Unknown Worlds . The first six U.S. issues were available directly in the UK, but thereafter an abridged British reprint edition was issued by Atlas Publications , beginning in September 1939. It was pulp-sized, and priced at 9d (nine pence ) throughout. It appeared on a regular monthly schedule until December 1940, after which

5760-615: Was born on April 26, 1914 in Montreal , Quebec , Canada. Gold was born Jewish , and there are claims that he at first had to write under pseudonyms because publishers feared the readers' potential antisemitism . He was drafted into the United States Army during World War II , serving in the Pacific War . As a result of trauma during his wartime experiences, he developed agoraphobia which became so severe that for more than two decades he

5840-434: Was changed from Unknown to Unknown Worlds with the March 1942 issue. In 1948, Street & Smith reprinted several stories from Unknown in a bedsheet-sized magazine format, priced at 25 cents, with the title From Unknown Worlds . This was an attempt to determine if there was a market for a revived Unknown . Street & Smith printed 300,000 copies, against the advice of John Campbell, but although it sold better than

5920-503: Was edited by John W. Campbell and published by Street & Smith Publications throughout its run. It was pulp-sized from its launch through August 1941, and then bedsheet -sized from October 1941 to April 1943. The last three issues were pulp-sized again. Street & Smith had planned to switch it to digest size with the December 1943 issue, but it was canceled before that issue appeared. The price began at 20 cents and rose to 25 cents with

6000-508: Was hooked. During the 1930s, Gold unsuccessfully wrote stories for pulp magazines. The day he was fired from his regular job because his boss believed that a writer should not work as a busboy , Gold learned that he had made his first sale. Beginning with "Inflexure" (as Clyde Crane Campbell ) in Astounding Science Fiction (October 1934), Gold later worked for Standard Magazines , Fawcett Comics and Timely Comics . He used

6080-476: Was not commercially successful, and in the opinion of science fiction historian Mike Ashley it was responsible for the creation of the modern fantasy publishing genre. In May 1923, the first issue of Weird Tales appeared, from Rural Publications in Chicago. Weird Tales was a pulp magazine that specialized in fantasy stories and material that no other magazine would accept. It was not initially successful, but by

6160-405: Was soon followed by its companion fantasy magazine, Beyond Fantasy Fiction (1953–55). Gold's Galaxy "made a startling impact on the world of science fiction", successor Frederik Pohl said in 1965, with " wit and relevance "; "It is difficult to exaggerate that impact". Some writers saw Gold as "a sort of slave-driver" but, Pohl said, "as one of the most frequently flogged of the slaves ...

6240-419: Was still the leader in the fantasy genre, though competitors such as Strange Stories were also being launched. Campbell began acquiring stories suitable for the new magazine, without a definite launch date in mind. When Eric Frank Russell sent him the manuscript of his novel Sinister Barrier , Campbell decided it was time to put his plans into action. The first issue of Unknown appeared in March 1939. It

6320-851: 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

6400-402: Was unable to leave his apartment. Towards the end of his life, he acquired some control over the condition. His marriage to Evelyn Stein ended in divorce in 1957, and his second marriage was to Muriel "Nicky" (Nicholson) Conley. He died in 1996. His brother Floyd C. Gold, writing under the pen name Floyd C. Gale, was the primary book reviewer for Galaxy from 1955 to 1963. His son E. J. Gold

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