Literature of the past and the present has made the mystery of man and his world more clear to us, and for that reason it has been less beautiful, for beauty lies only in the things that are mysterious. Beauty is a groping of the emotions towards realization of things which may be unknown only to the intellect. Scientifiction goes out into the remote vistas of the universe, where there is still mystery and so still beauty. For that reason scientifiction seems to me to be the true literature of the future.

– G. Peyton Wertenbaker to Amazing Stories creator Hugo Gernsback, July 1926. via The Time Machines: The Story of the Science-Fiction Pulp Magazines from the beginning to 1950 by Mike Ashley.

One of the most important contributions of pulp magazines to 20th century popular culture was the development of an American science fiction tradition. Leading this new genre was Hugo Gernsback and Amazing Stories, the first English language magazine entirely devoted to science fiction.

One of the longest running pulp magazines, Amazing Stories published from April 1926 until the early years of the 21st century. Reprinted stories comprised the entirety of the magazine’s first edition, including the works of HG Wells, Jules Verne, and Edgar Allen Poe. These stories and Gernsback’s first editor’s letter set the tone for this “new sort of magazine.”

Despite his ambitions, Gernsback struggled to bring science fiction into the realm of “literature.” Focusing more heavily on the science instead of the story-telling, he would be criticized for not holding high enough editorial standards and “ghettoizing” the genre (source: The Time Machines). Of course, this did not hinder the magazines popularity, and within its first year Gernsback had a circulation of over 100,000.

When the Great Depression struck, many pulps faltered or folded. Amazing was fortunate enough to be a recent acquisition of Macfadden Publishing, which managed to maintain some level of wealth as a source of escapist entertainment through the 1930s. The patronage of Macfadden kept the magazine afloat, but it still suffered both in quality and readership. By 1934, circulation had fallen to little more than 25,000. In 1935, Amazing changed its publishing schedule from monthly to bi-monthly.

After a decade under the lethargic editorship of Thomas O’Conor Sloane, Amazing picked up again in the 1940s with the help of Raymond A. Palmer. Palmer solicited the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (whose work published in Amazing was actually largely that of his son, John Coleman) whose name boosted sales and saved the magazine. In 1944, Ray Bradbury published two stories with Amazing as he built a name for himself. Part of the publication’s popularity was due to the publication of the Shaver Mystery, a story written by a reader with whom Palmer had a public correspondence in the magazine. Richard S Shaver claimed to have seen visions of the supernatural, and Palmer latched onto him advertising the mystery in editions leading up to its publication and daring his readers to believe it. The story, “I Remember Lemuria,” tells of Atlan, a pre-biblical civilization and the first on Earth. The mystery was wildly popular and further escalated Amazing‘s circulation for the next few years, though Palmer was criticized for it in Harper’s and other magazines of its ilk.

Though the Shaver Mystery boosted sales, it did little for Amazing Stories’ reputation as a publisher of quality science fiction. In the 1950s, with Howard Browne at the helm, the magazine increased its pay for authors from 1 to 5 cents a word and solicited stories from some of the biggest authors in the genre, including Isaac Asimov and Clifford Simak. Browne intended to repackage Amazing as a slick magazine, but budget cuts from the Korean War kept this new edition from publication. It remained a pulp, but still published the new content which was enough to help change the minds of some who had dismissed the magazine.

By the end of 1950s, Amazing was stumbling yet again. This time, it was revived by editor Cele Goldsmith who brought Asimov back into the fold as well as publishing a new group of authors like J.G. Ballard and Philip K. Dick. Goldsmith also published Ursula K LeGuin and Roger Zelazny’s first professional stories in the 1960s.

After Goldsmith, Amazing was sold and languished for a few years before coming under the successful editorship of Ted White throughout the 1970s. However, due to troubles with the publisher, White resigned in 1979. After White’s departure, the magazine lasted until 2005, but it would never reach the same level of prominence achieved before 1980 again.

Recommended Reading: The Time Machines: The Story of the Science-Fiction Pulp Magazines from the beginning to 1950 by Mike Ashley

At JMU Special Collections we have a wide selection of editions of Amazing Stories from its founding year of 1926 to 1952. Currently, we are seeking to expand this collection to create a compendium of pulp magazines to give researchers and students insight into popular culture of the 20th century.