The Age of the Storytellers: British Popular Fiction Magazines, 1880-1950

326 Pages·2006·22.377 MB·English

by  Mike Ashley

THE AGE OF THE
STORYTELLERS
BriPtoipsuhFl iacrMt aigoanz ines
1880-1950
MIKEA SHLEY
THEB RITILSIHB RARY
AND
OAKK NOLLP RESS
CONTENTS
Illustrations in text vii
Acknowledgements
Introduction by David Pringle and Mike Ashley
User Guide 17
Chronology 20
Colour Plates 38
Section l: Primary Magazines 39
Adventure-Slory Magazine• Air Stories• AII-S10,y Magazine• Argosy • Besl­
SJory Magazine • The Blue Magazine • Cassell 's Magazine • Chapman 'sf
Crampton' s Magazine • The Charing Cross Magazine • The Club Room • The
Corner Magazine • The Crusoe Mag. • The Detective Magazine • Empire
Fronlier • English Illustrated Magazine• Everybody's Magazine• Fantasy•
The Golden Mag./Golden Wes/ • The Grand Magazine • The Green Magazine
• The Happy Mag. • The Ho/born Monthly Magazine • Hush • Hutchinson's
Magazine • The Idler • The Jolly Mag. • The lady's Magazine • Lady's Realm
• Lloyd's Magazine • The London Magazine • The Ludgale Monthly • The
Magpie • The Merry Mag. • The Mins/er • Modern Stories • Mystery and
Detection • Mystery Stories • Myslery-Story Magazine • Nash S Magazine •
The New Maga2ine • The Novel Magazine • Pall Mall Magazine • Pan •
Pearson's Magazine • The Premier Magazine • The Realm • The Red
Magazine • Romance • The Royal Magazine • Sievier 's Monthly • The
Sovereign Magazine • Standard Stories • The Story-Teller • The Strand
Magazine • The Sunny Mag. • Tales of Wonder • Tip-Top/Regent Magazine •
20 Story Magazine • The Universal Magazine • The Violet Magazine • War
Stories• Weekly Tale-Teller• Western Adventures • The White Magazine•
The Windsor Magazine • Wings • Woman at Home • World Stories • The
Yellow Magazine• Yes or No
Section 2: Other Magazines 242
Argosy• Ata/anla • Badminlon Magazine• Belgravia • Black and White• The
Black Cat • Blackwood's Magazine • The Boy's Own Paper • Brilannia and
Eve • The Butlerjly • The Caplain • Chambers's Journal • Chums • Colour •
The Cornhill Magazine • Eureka/The Favorile Magazine • Fry S Magazine •
Gaiety • Good Housekeeping • Good Words • The Graphic •Harper's Bazaar
• Harper's Monlhly Magazine • Home Chimes • Horlick' s Magazine • The
lllustraled London News • The Imp • Lamber/' s Monlhly • London Sociely •
Longman 's Magazine • Lovat Dickson S Magazine • Macmillan's Magazine •
The Mas/er Thriller • Nash's /llustraled Weekly • The Osbome • Outward
Bound• The Passing Show • Pearson's Story-Teller • Pearson's Weekly • The
Quiver • Sandow 's Magazine • The Savoy • Scoops • The Search Lighl • Shor/
Stories • The Sketch • The Smart Set • The Sphere • The Sunday/ Story Journal
• The Sunday Strand• T.P. S Magazine• Temple Bar• The Temple Magazine
• The Thriller• Thrills• Tit-Bits• To-Day• Woman • Woman's Journal• The
World and His Wife• The Yellow Book
Summary of Editors and Publishers 274
Bibliography 290
Index 294
ILLUSTRATIINOT NESX T
Whekrneo wcno,va ertri nsatmsae'rs ne o tiebndr ackets.
The Strand Magazine, Janu1a8ry(9 G1e oHragiet e) I
The Story-Teller, Apr1i9l(0 D8a vWihdi telaw) 2
RobLeorutSi tse venson 4
The Boy's Own Paper, 4 October 1879 7
SherHloolcmdker sab wy Sni dPnaegyfoe rTth e Strand, Ju1l8y9 1 11
Pearson's Magazine, Apr1i9l(0 G2a mbier) 12
Strand Magazine, Novem1b9e3r9 15
llluslration by Anthony Gilbert for "The Return of Long John Silver" in
The Strand, Decem1b9e4r9 16
Adventure-Story Magazine, Janu1a9ry(2 E6. M.) 41
AirStories,January 1940O(r$i.g in) 43
All-Story Magazine, Janu1a9r(2yL7 e Boa tes) 45
The Argosy, Ma1y 933 47
The Blue Magazine, Octo1b9e2r1 50
JohCna ssell 52
Casse//'s Family Magazine, Augu1s8t9 3 53
Headfoir"n Igtn h Ceh aoifCn rsi frmoem"Ca sse/1 's Magazine, Jun1e8 98 54
Casse/1 's Magazine, Mar1c9h0 8 55
Cassel/'s Magazine, Janu1a9r(1yC3 y rCuusn eo) 56
Chapman's Magazine, genecroavdlee rs ign 58
Crampton's Magazine, May1 902 60
The Corner Magazine, Mar1c9h2 7 63
The Crusoe Mag., Ju1l9y2 4 65
Illusbtylr nadBteuirmof sno. Lr.i ncGkreesCa'at si enT"h e Detective
Magazine, 2M ar1c9h2 3 67
Empire Frontier, Janu1a9r(3yC0 h aCrrloemsb ie) 68
IllusbtyWr aalttCieroranfo n r"e A H eroafSl pdr iin nThge E"n glish
Illustrated Magazine, Apr1i8l8 4 70
IllusbtyJr oahCtnoi lofolnri" eWro oTdoenniy nTh" e English Illustrated
Magazine, Decem1b8e9r0 71
Everybody's Story Magazine, Janu1a9r(1yH1 a rGoolldd man) 77
Everyone's, Janu1a9ry(1 P4e rKsiirmss e) 78
Fantasy #31,9 (3S9O. r igin) 79
The Golden Mag. • Jun1e92 6 80
The Grand Magazine, Febr1u9a0r5y 81
The Grand Magazine, Ma1y 9(3E9d wOannrodn d) 85
vii
The Happy Mag., November 1938 (D.L. Ghilchik) 87
The Evesham Monthly Magazine. April 1903 (P. Lancaster) 89
Hush, December 1930 90
Hutchinson's Story-Magazine, September 1928 92
Heading by Dudley Hardy for ''The Idler's Club" for The Idler, February 1892 95
The Idler, July 1899 (S.H. Sime) 97
The Idler, June 1904 (G.K. Chesterton) 99
The Lady's Magazine, November 1901 IOI
The Lady's Realm, November 1896 I 03
Lloyd's Story Magazine, May 1917 (Filmore) 107
The London Magazine, November 1909 111
Heading by Hilda Cowham for '"The Railway Children" in The London
Magazine, January 1905 113
Frontispiece to "The Scarlet Plague" for The London Magazine, June 1912 115
Illustration by WaIWick Reynolds for"When the World Was Young" in
The London Magazine, June 1926 116
The New London Magazine, September 1931 117
The Ludgate Monthly, November 1891 118
Illustration by Ernest Prater for "The Deeds of Michael Niel" in
The Ludgate, February 1898 120
The Magpie, August 1912 122
The Merry Magazine, April 1929 123
Mystery-Story Magazine, April 1924 127
Nash's Magazine, June 191 I 129
Nash's and Pall Mall Magazine, July 1916 (Harrison Fisher) 131
Illustration by John R. Flanagan for "Zanzibar" in Nash's and Pall Mall
Magazine, August 1923 134
Nash's-Pall Mall, December 1936 (Philip Zee) 136
The New Magazine, May 1909 138
The Novel Magazine, November 1909 142
The Novel Magazine, April 1919 (E. H. Thomas) 145
Illustration by Aubrey Beardsley to ·'The Black Art" for Pall Mall
Magazine, June 1893 147
Illustration by Aubrey Beardsley to "The Kiss of Judas" for Pall Mall
Magazine, July 1893 148
Illustration by Abbey Altson to "A Beauty to Her Mirror" for Pall Mall
Magazine, December 1894 148
Pall Mall Magazine, October 1927 (Edmund Dulac) 154
Pan, April 1924 (Tom Purvis) 156
Pearson's Magazine, March 1902 (Popini) 159
Heading by Cosmo Rowe for "The War of the Worlds" for Pearson's
Magazine,April 1897 161
Pearson's Magazine, February 1925 (Howard Elcock) 166
Illustration by John Campbell for ''The Problem of Uncle Meleager's Will"
for Pearson's Magazine, July 1925 167
The Premier Magazine, May 1914 (Cyrus Cuneo) 169
The Premier Magazine, March 1923 (Dorothy Morgan) 172
The Red Magazine, I March 1910 176
The Red Magazine, 18 February 1921 (Hawley Morgan) 178
Romance, July 1924 (J. Dewar Mills) 180
The Royal Magazine, August 1902 182
Illustration by E. H. Shepard for "Kanga Comes to the Forest" for The Royal
Magazine, October 1926 185
The New Royal, December 1930; The Royal Pictorial, November 1934;
Screen Pictorial, July 1937 186
The Sovereign Magazine, November 1919 188
Standard Stories, October 1925 190
The Story-Teller, April 1907 (David Whitelaw) 191
The Story-Teller, November 1930 194
George Newnes 196
The editorial offices of The Strand from the December 1892 issue 198
Sidney Paget's first illustration ofH olmes and Watson for The Strand, July 1891 199
A. Conan Doyle in feature "Portraits ofC elebrities at Different Times
of their Lives" from The Strand, December 1891 200
The Strand Magazine, July 1917 203
Alfred Leete's depiction ofJ eeves in The Strand, June 1916 204
The Strand Magazine, October 1941 205
Tom Purvis 's illustration of Sherlock Holmes for The Strand, February 194 7 206
The Sunny and Gaiety Mag. • June 1929 209
Tales of Wonder, Autumn 1940 (Hany Turner) 210
Tip Top Stories, July 1924 (C. Loneragan) 211
20 Story Magazine, March 1930 (Edgar Spenceley) 213
The Violet Magazine, 16 April 1926 (Dudley Cowes) 217
Weekly Tale Teller, 28 May 1910 (Dudley Cowes) 219
Western Adventures, June 1936 (W. Gale) 221
The Windwr Magazine, January 1905 223
Illustration by Stanley L. Wood for "Dr Nikola" in The Windsor Magazine,
January 1895 224
Illustration by Maurice Greiffenhagen for "Ayesha" in The Windsor Magazine,
January 1905 226
The Windsor Magazine, February 1937 (John Campbell) 229
The Woman at Home, October 1901 231
The Home Magazine, January 1923 235
The Yellow Magazine, 15 May 1925 237
Yes or No, 5 December 1908 239
Acknowledgements
A work of lhis kind cannot be completed without a considerable amount of help from others,
either in checking or pursuing facts or in providing access to source materials. First and
foremost thanks must go to David Pringle, without whom this book may not have existed. In
establishing the "Fictionmags" internet discussion group to encourage research into the
"Standard Illustrated Popular Magazine", as he calls them, David encouraged me to pursue
work that I had commenced years before. David also composed the introduction to this book
and contributed the entry on The Strand as well as those on Boy's Own Paper, Chums, The
Captain and The Thriller.
I must thank staff at the British Library for their help and guidance, in particular Frances
Lill, for helping to identify holdings and unwrinkling the whole research process, Arthur
Cunningham, who first saw the potential of this project, and David Way for steering me
through the minefield. Thanks also to Kelvin Ithell, Stewart Gillies and Sharon Foster at the
British Library; Vanessa Corrick and Richard Bell at the Bodleian Library, Oxford; Yvonne
Marr at the National Library of Scotland, and Toni Richardson at the Library of Congress.
My thanks also go to the following. Dennis K. Lien at the University of Minnesota for his
help in identifying major US library holdings and, along with Richard Bleiler of the University
of Connecticut and Victor Berch of Brandeis Library, Boston, in responding to a welter of
queries on writers and newspaper sources. Jack Adrian for helping to clarify many of the
obscure by-ways of popular fiction magazines. George Locke of Ferret Fantasy for allowing
access to many of his magazines plus commenting on the final copy and providing freely of his
deep knowledge of popular fiction. John Eggeling for his knowledge of the minutiae of the
popular fiction world and for his help in tracking down some of the more obscure magazines.
Stephen Holland for his detailed knowledge of the world of boys' fiction and the crossover
with popular magazines and story-papers and in sharing data on lesser known writers. Dr
Aubrey Wilson for his help with Ernest Bramah. Bill Contento for maintaining the
"FictionMags" Index, plus Michael Saler, Michael Ward, Phil Stephensen-Payne, Jess Nevins,
Morgan Wallace and other members of the "FictionMags" internet discussion group for data on
magazine contents and covers and in helping identify variances between British and American
editions. Finally thanks to Margaret Rose and Chloe Veale at the History of Advertising Trust
for their help in checking their archives and, in particular, the Advertisers' Protection Society
Monthly Circular.
INTRODUCTION
THE AGE OF THE STORYTELLERS
"The 'age of the S1ory Tellers". initiated by Stevenson with Treu.nwe Mand in 1883 and
ushered in by Rider Haggard with King Solomon '.f Mines two years later, was already
becoming rather overblown by the end of 1hc century. A hosl of followers ... were pouring
out romances and adventure stories in an ever thickening s1rcam."
-Roger Lancelyn Green. Introduction. The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope. 1966
This book seeks to explore a major aspect of what, following
Roger Lancelyn Green's lead, was the "Age of the Storytellers".
Its subject is the popular (as distinct from the "literary") fiction
magazine which proliferated in Britain from 1880 to 1950 in the
wake of the success of The Strand Magazine. Its purpose is to
provide a history and appreciation of these magazines, to explore
their contribution to the growth of popular fiction and, hopefully,
to spread an awareness of their existence and the role they played
in developing writers and establishing the popular categories of
fiction. This introduction sets the context in which the magazines
grew and prospered, and a series of A-2 entries discusses in detail
each of the 144 titles (70 in the main section and 74 shorter
entries in the subsidiary section) which were the primary British
popular fiction magazines.
The S1rand defines the era, for it was this magazine that established the panem for its
competitors, and it was the last of the original magazines to survive. Most other survivors
disappeared during the Second World War. which is the real cut-off point of this volume. The
S1rand managed 10 survive until 1950, but it was a shadow of its fonner self and had shrunk
into the digest format which became the new norm for the relatively few fiction-carrying
magazines of the 1950s and '60s. Thus the core of this Guide covers those magazines whose
heyday was in the period 1890-1940 but viewed within the context of the Age of the
Storytellers from 1880 to 1950.
These magazines fall into two closely-related groups. The Strand itself. starting in 1891,
and its most successful imitators -The Windmr, Pearson's, The London and, to a lesser
degree, Poll Mall -were among the breed of monthly general-interest family magazines that
were printed on high-quality glossy paper, allowing for a profusion of photographs,
THE AGE OF THE STORYTELLERS
illustrations and fine art. Because they were priced at just sixpence -later ones even less -they
brought the world into the reach of millions. They were modelled to a large extent on the
American magazines Harper's and Cen1ury Illustrated, though they had their own forerunners
in Britain, especially The English Illustrated Magazine. Some of these, most notably Nash ·s,
metamorphosed in the 1920s into the large, flat glossy fonnat, which became known as the "big
slick" magazine. and was heavily (literally) supported by advertising. At the heart of the
success of these magazines was their short fiction, especially the popular story series so well
defined by the Sherlock Holmes adventures by Arthur Conan Doyle. In establishing their
popularity these magazines ushered in the era of the short story. particularly those built around
iconic heroes and villains. So much of the popular fiction that typifies the late Victorian and
Edwardian periods, and the Roaring Twenties, first appeared in these magazines. The success
of this first group encouraged the second. In the mid-Edwardian period the major publishers
experimented with magazines consisting solely of short stories, mostly un-illustrated and
usually printed on poorer-quality paper, either newsprint or pulp. The Novel was the forerunner
and, to some extent, The Grand, but it was The Story-Teller, in 1907, that established this trend
and over the next few years there was a huge eruption of all-fiction monthly magazines.
These are the periodicals covered in this book. They are the
magazines that arc either all-fiction, or where the fiction is upper­
most and, over the magazine's lifetime, the most significant
elemen1. They are also, for the most part, monthlies. though some
had fortnightly schedules for part of their run. A few weekly
magazines are included because they were special, but they are
the exception. These are the magazines which fall under the above
definitions that were published in Britain and had their significant
years in the period 1890 to 1940. Amongst them are a few titles,
such as Cassell ·s and English Illustrated. which began before
1890 and, others like The S1rand or The Quiver, which continued
beyond 1940. There are no entries for magazines whose life was
over by 1890, or soon after, and likewise none where their main
existence was after 1940.
Some of these magazines, particularly The Strand and Nosh S
are very well known. and have been written about elsewhere, but many are long forgotten and
some, like The Club Room, are so rare that no complete run is known to exist. The majority of
these magazines have not been covered in any reference book. Although some may be referred
to in author biographies or discussions of popular fictional characters the degree of coverage is
superficial at best. Who now recalls that it was in The Story-Teller that Sax Rohmer's Fu
Manchu first appeared? Or Hutchinson ·.f Magazine that first presented Sapper's Bulldog
Drummond? Or The Home Magazine where Richmal Crompton's "Just William" first got into
mischief, or The Premier Magazine where Rafael Sabatini's Captain Blood raised 1he skull­
and-crossbones? Without these magazines cultivating and tilling the soil, could these
characters, and many others, ever have taken root and flourished?
This is the first reference book to sludy these magazines in the context of their period and
provide a comprehensive survey and analysis. The entries concentrate on the fiction but also
seek to give an all-round picture through 1heir non-fiction features and artwork. II provides in