Reviews for The Classic Era of American Pulp Magazines

The average rating for The Classic Era of American Pulp Magazines based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-01-14 00:00:00 Angelo Boni A superb history of the American pulp magazines, which had their heyday between 1920 and 1950 and which spawned some of the great writers of mystery and science fiction. They were a follow-up to the 19th century dime novel and contained three basic ingredients, action, adventure and sex, not necessarily together or in that order. And the titles often reflected their content, for example Spicy Mystery, Stolen Sweets, Cupid's Capers and Sizzling Romances. In addition the artwork for the covers was classic and reflected the contents within the covers - well, at least it sometimes did, other times it was just titillating to draw the would-be purchaser to the product. And it succeeded! The artwork in itself is a catalogue of all those illustrators who were at work during the period and all that is best in the pulp fiction cover market. Some of the ladies are quite scantily clad, which, in the case of some of the science fiction magazines, is somewhat surprising for the ladies male counterparts are usually space-suit clad! The obvious writers who began in pulp magazines are Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett but others who honed their trade in the genre were such as Isaac Asimov, Max Brand, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Arthur C ClarkeL Ron Hubbard, H P Lovecraft, E E Smith and many more. Many of them are represented at the end of the book with brief pen pictures. And, despite its title, the book's final chapter covers the British pulps which were a spin-off from their American counterparts. They, too, feature some fine writers and certainly display equally attractive covers such as those on Verity, Science Fantasy, Bedside Detective Casebook and many more. The book is a visual treat and the text is well researched and very well written; it is amazing how many publishers, both in America and Britain, jumped on the bandwagon and started pulp magazines, some of them to live for only one issue. It is most definitely a book to browse now and again after the read!

Review # 2 was written on 2018-09-10 00:00:00 Davin Crazy A great resource for two things: 1) High-quality (for the most part) reprints of Pulp Magazine Covers in all their lurid glory, and 2) a historical overview of different genres - smut, sci-fi, fantasy, horror, etc. Nothing too in-depth, but it's a fantastic starting place for information about pulps if you want to get a sense for general trends, which magazines to look for, and the names of authors, editors, and artists working in the field.