A BRIEF HISTORY OF SCIENCE FICTION &
PULP MAGAZINES
The first "pulp magazine" has not actually
been identified per se, but it probably appeared in the 1880's. Some authorities
claim that the first all fiction issue of The Argosy (Oct.
1896) is the first "pulp magazine," but there are hundreds of
true pulp magazines that are not "all fiction". Why quibble? In
April, 1894, The Argosy became a monthly magazine in the traditional
7 x 10 inch format, and it's a convenient place to start. There were some
Horatio Alger stories in these early issues, and even a science fiction
serial: A. Laurie's "A Month in the Moon", Feb.- Aug, 1897. Pulpdom's
purpose is to explore and expose the pulp magazine phenomenom, so this is
just the begining.
"The amount of real science in science-fiction ranges from moderate
to none at all." said noted SF historian Ev. Bleiler in 1990. Generally
speaking, there is not adequate definition of "Science Fiction".
Perhaps take some science and mix in some imagination and tell a story =
"sf". Some begin with Thomas More's UTOPIA (1516), or Sir Francis
Bacon's NEW ATLANTIS (1628); and there are others. I like to begin with
Mary Shelly's FRANKENSTEIN (1817) since it fits the definition of taking
some hard science (medicine/human physiology), and telling an imaginative
story, which she certainly did.
Jules Verne's "voyages extrodinaires", which began in 1851
with A DRAMA IN THE AIR, and soon included A JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE
EARTH (1864) and FROM EARTH TO THE MOON and A TRIP ROUND IT (1865 &
1874) brought him fame, and today he's known as the "father of Science
Fiction".
Edgar Allan Poe and Fitz-James O'Brien were writing what is now considered
"sf" in mid-19th century American periodicals and there were some
singular works in the 1880's. Rider Haggard began a series of "lost
race" novels with KING SOLOMON'S MINES in 1885 and H. G. Wells pushed
the envelope with his March, 1894 story that became THE TIME MACHINE. And
of course his WAR OF THE WORLDS (1897) is a classic alien invasion of earth.
H. G. Wells, says E. F. Bleiler, is "the true founder of modern science
fiction."
Millionaire Percival Lowell's fascination with the close approach of
Mars to Earth in 1894 and the decade of publicity that followed his findings
probably inspired American science journalist Garrett P. Serviss to write
sf such as: EDISON'S CONQUEST OF MARS (1898).
Frank Aubrey/Fenton Ash wrote a number of "scientific romances"
beginning with THE DEVIL TREE OF EL DORADO (1896). and The Argosy,
reprinted his QUEEN OF ATLANTIS as an 1899 "lost race" serial.
Park Winthrop wrote of a people inside the earth with "THE LAND OF
THE CENTRAL SUN," a 1902 serial in Argosy and William Wallace
Cook created "robots" in his 1903 Argosy sf serial A ROUND
TRIP TO THE YEAR 2000; OR A FLIGHT THROUGH TIME.
The appearance of dozens of novels from Edgar Rice Burroughs, beginning
with UNDER THE MOONS OF MARS as a serial in a 1911 pulp magazine called
The All-Story, flooded readers with superb science fiction adventures.
Within a few years. there were several 'sf' authors: Garret Smith, George
Allan England, Abe Merritt, H. Eon Flint, Murray Leinster, Ray Cummings
and others. Many sf stories from the old pulps remain unreprinted, and we
will reprint more of them!
A unique magazine titled Weird Tales began in 1923, but it contained
more 'horror' and 
'fantasy' than sf. In April 1926, a publisher
of popular science, electronics & radio magazines, Hugo Gernsback, introduced
Amazing Stories, which was to publish only "scientifiction"
stories. It promptly started reprinting Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, and Edgar
Rice Burroughs, but soon introduced new authors such as H. Hyatt Verrill.
In Jan. 1930 another sf pulp began, Astounding, and soon a new editor
named John W. Campbell was insisting on "hard science" as a basis
for story acceptance. By the mid-1930's, there was almost a blur between
"science fiction", "monster stories" and the "hero
pulp" stories like Shadow and Doc Savage. Today, these
all fall into the realm of what has become "traditional sf", but
Campbell's' discovery of Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov are special milestones.
These "pulp magazines", originating with The Argosy in
the 1890's, had grown and multiplied during the first 30 years of the 20th
century, and by 1930 there were hundreds of titles, many "sf"
oriented, many general adventure, western and air-war, some "spicy",
some "love," and many "hero" or character centered.
By 1938 radio and motion pictures were occupying much of the old pulp reading
public, and pulp magazine publishers were worried about lagging sales at
newsstands. Argosy would make a dramatic change from "pulp fiction"
to "men's adventure" in 1943, a milestone in the history of pulp
magazines.
There was a brief revival of interest in pulp magazines in the early
1940's but by 1947, pulp readers were turning to Ballantine and Ace "paperbacks",
and by 1954 all the pulps were gone. In the late 1940's, digest sf magazines
such as Analog, Fantasy and Science Fiction and Galaxy
were monthly sources of "science fiction," as were specialty hardcover
publishers such as Gnome Press and Avalon Books, who were reprinting stories
from the pulps.
The first "sf convention" was back in 1939, but they -- the
sf readers and fans who had coalesced around the idea of 'science fiction'--
didn't start giving awards for sf writing until the 1950's. For the "Hugo
Awards" info (1952 - 1997) see: http://wsfs.org/hy.html.
Science Fiction readers call themselves "fans", and many publish
"fanzines" about favorite authors, or sf in general. I began my
fanzine in 1960: ERB-dom, devoted to Edgar Rice Burroughs. We won
the Hugo Award in 1966 for Best Amateur Fanzine. Recently, I enlarged my
perspective to other authors of the old days (1880's-1930's) and now you
have a magazine titled PULPDOM. The advertising section, mostly for
individual fans and collectors, is called The Fantastic Collector,
and grew out of The Fantasy Collector, an adzine of the 1960's, which
grew out of The Fantasy Advertiser of the 1940's & 1950's. ERB-dom
lives on in the pages of PULPDOM.
