It was at the same time as the publication of The War of the Worlds in 1897 that THE ARGOSY ran three science-fiction serials simultaneously, and it was during the appearance of The First Men in the Moon that it resumed, after a year's lapse, a heavy schedule of science fiction which was maintained.
The probability is strong that science fiction became a regular diet in the pulps because H. G. Wells was scoring so great a success in the slicks. It was obvious that its subject matter aptly fitted the category of high adventure, even when it was but the cerebral adventure of scientific discovery and invention.
During the early part of the century, when THE ARGOSY was building in popularity so rapidly, it was unillustrated. It predominantly featured the works of new writers, former dime novelists, and second-raters. Subscriptions made up a minor part of its sales; most copies had to sell on the newsstand and were subject to the competition of scores of other publications. Yet, at its peak in 1907 it was one of the most successful and beloved magazines in the world.
During an age when radio and television were unknown, when moving pictures were jumpy short subjects at five-cent admission, it provided 192 pages, or 135,000 words, of entertainment for only ten cents. Printed on the cover of the July, 1902, issue (along with a poster-type announcement of the science-fiction thriller Land of the Central Sun) was the following: "192 pages—All stories—stories of rapid action and stirring adventure, stories with sweep and go to them. Stories without tiresome descriptions or baffling dialect."
Sometimes THE ARGOSY stories were so stripped of description (a dime-novel characteristic) that they verged on becoming a lengthy synopsis. Frequently the writing could best be described as amateurish (though a few authors ranked very high, including early fiction by O. Henry and James Branch Cabell), but always there was a story, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. There was no slice of life, no grim realism, no character studies, no stream of consciousness, no sermons in the form of stories or fictionalized propaganda or promotions. But there was an enveloping human interest, an extraordinary ingenuity of plot, far-reaching imagination, a romantic view of life, slapstick humor, limitless variety, and true escapism.
The magazine was male-oriented but had a high woman readership, running many forthright love stories in action settings or sentimentally heart-warming situations.
In the parlance of today's trade magazines, THE ARGOSY had found a "niche," substantially more adult than the dime novels and considerably less "precious" than the popular magazines like COSMOPOLITAN, MCCLURE'S, PEARSON'S, STRAND, or THE BLACK CAT. THE ARGOSY matched or topped them all in circulation and even eclipsed in readers the five-cent weekly, COLLIER'S. There would be periods from 1907 on when THE ARGOSY would claim the second-largest circulation in the world.
3. COMPETITION—"THE POPULAR MAGAZINE"
IN A NATION devoted to the free-enterprise system, such a comfortable situation could not be a monopoly for long. With the issue dated November, 1903, THE POPULAR MAGAZINE appeared on the newsstands, published by Street & Smith, for many years one of the great dime-novel houses and recently entering the popular-magazine field, with AINSLEE'S. Street & Smith was aware that the era of the dime novel and boys' weeklies was drawing to a close. The demise was being slowed by color covers and more readable type, but was inevitable. Street & Smith was in the early stages of entering the general magazine field through both the launching of new periodicals and the conversion of famous dime-novel series into pulps. The purpose of THE POPULAR MAGAZINE was to establish a boys' magazine with such a note of respectability that it would win the approval of parents. Its strategy for accomplishing this was to stay away from the sensational action cover, which had been the forte of the boys' magazines, and publish something serene and respectable. Finally the still-life cover was struck upon.
In the first period there were colored photographs of wooded, grassy hillsides; a man's fox hunting equipment hung on the side of a barn; ears of corn with pumpkin, and the legend: "Harvest of Good Stories in this issue." This policy brought two unexpected reactions. First, an inordinately high percentage of purchasers developed to be adult males rather than boys or teen-agers, fooled by the respectability of the magazine's appearance, and secondly, everybody's magazine, in the January, 1905, number, blasted them for "copying" their cover design.
Henry Harrison Lewis, veteran dime-novel editor, had been given the job of putting THE POPULAR MAGAZINE over because of his knowledge of the boys' market. One of his greatest claims to fame was hiring seventeen-year-old Upton Sinclair to write a series of dime novels featuring West Point hero Hal Maynard. These stories appeared in a publication called THE STARRY FLAG WEEKLY, which was launched in time for the Cuban War. Sinclair, in an interview, claimed to have written up to eight thousand words a day for Street & Smith dime novels for four years between the ages of seventeen and twenty-one, contributing to the "True Blue Library" and "The Columbia Library," among others.
Lewis was himself a prolific contributor to THE POPULAR MAGAZINE as well as later pulps. One of the most interesting things he did as editor was to rebut EVERYBODY'S on their claim that THE POPULAR MAGAZINE had picked up the idea for still-life covers from them. He devoted four pages to the matter in the February, 1904, issue of THE POPULAR MAGAZINE, in which he presented cuts showing that EVERYBODY'S MAGAZINE had copied not only the idea but also the subject matter of many of its covers from THE BOOKLOVER'S MAGAZINE. He rubbed salt in the wound by presenting a series of quotes and ideas borrowed by EVERYBODY'S MAGAZINE from MUNSEY'S MAGAZINE. Of course, since Forman J. Ridgway, president of EVERYBODY'S MAGAZINE, had worked seven years for Frank A. Munsey on sales before becoming a publisher in 1903, similarity of outlook and method was not unexpected.
Far more significant was the change of policy of THE POPULAR MAGAZINE with its February, 1904, number. It dropped all pretense of juvenility, beefed up the magazine from ninety-six to "194 pages of Adventure Fiction" for ten cents, and called it "The Biggest Magazine in the World," since it had two pages more than THE ARGOSY. In actual count, THE ARGOSY ran 135,000 words an issue, as compared to 126,000 words for THE POPULAR MAGAZINE (and had a more readable type face), because it sets its columns more than one inch deeper on every page. THE POPULAR MAGAZINE, with its February, 1904, number, provided THE ARGOSY with the first direct competition it had ever had— a pulp identical in size, format, and basic policy, differing only in its full-color, pictorial covers. With that issue appeared the first science fiction, a short story, At Jupiter's Call, by R. H. Farnham. A scientist theorizes that the pull of the planet Jupiter will draw an aerolite toward it if that object is raised to a height of five thousand feet. He attaches a cable to the stone, which is in turn fastened to a railroad flatcar. A balloon carries the aerolite to the five-thousand-foot height, at which the attraction of Jupiter, drawing it westward, pulls the flatcar at seventeen miles a minute, resulting in a disastrous collision.
A column in the March, 1904, issue, "A Chat with Our Readers," appeared to cast the shroud over the use of tales of fantasy in the future. It read, "We greatly admire Poe, and we think his work worthy of a very prominent niche in the halls of fame, but we do not believe the Poesque class of literature is what our readers want. And we will say, further, that the gruesome, the grotesque, the repellent, the blood-creeping tragic, will not find a place in these columns. Life is far too short to be able to spare any part of it for the perusal of gloomy stories."
Apparently the editor of the magazine had not carefully read the contents of that very same issue, because it contained After the Paper Went to Bed, by M. J. Reynolds, which nerve-shatteringly delineates how a performing kitten triggers a nervous breakdown in an overworked reporter.
Among the other stories in the March issue was one by Charles Agnew MacLean, Seven-Nine-Cipher, a pathetically inept attempt involving a planned theft in a railroad yard. The majority of the stories in the early issues of THE POPULAR MAGAZINE were scarcely better. Though MacLean showed small promise as a writer, he
was to become one of the most distinguished of editors, replacing Lewis during 1904 as the guiding light of THE POPULAR MAGAZINE.
Whoever wrote the policy statement against tales of the bizarre and supernatural, it could not have been MacLean. He came up with one of the scoops of the publishing season when he secured first American publishing rights for H. Rider Haggard's sequel to She, titled Ayesha. Haggard had always intended to write a sequel, though as the years passed he doubted his ability to work himself into the same romantic mood that had assisted in creating the literary magic that made She a classic. A letter of his outlines the plot as early as 1898, and his working title was Hes, an alternate appellation for the Goddess Isis.
The British book publisher Ward, Lock & Company had paid one thousand pounds (about five thousand dollars) for rights to the book and issued a first printing of twenty-five thousand copies in 1905. THE WINDSOR MAGAZINE serialized it in England in its issues December, 1904-October, 1905. They ran fifty-two interior illustrations, making the issues collectors' items. THE POPULAR MAGAZINE, which featured the novel in the numbers of January-August, 1905, had no interior illustrations, but for the first three installments still life was abandoned on the covers and three outstanding artists, Hamilton King, E. Hering, and F. X. Chamberlain, offered graphic, colorful scenes from the novel.
Editor MacLean offered substantial biographical and associational information with Ayesha, which was a real adventure thriller with its locale in the mountain fastness of Tibet. "She," who appeared to wither and age in the flame in the original book, has not died, but lives again with her passion for Leo, whom she regards as the reincarnation of her ancient love. "She," or "Ayesha," is an immortal woman of extraordinary powers who has the chemical wizardry to convert iron into gold and is prevented from flooding the world with this metal only through the protestations of Leo that it will cause havoc and grief. Ayesha has the ability to bring into her presence scenes that are occurring distances away, and can even transmit these "visions" to her guests. She has the capability to hypnotize and even to call down the lightning and storm of the heavens at her command. Her kiss brings death to Leo, and her true origin and meaning is lost in allegory.
If any single story "made" THE POPULAR MAGAZINE, it was Ayesha. Before it began, the magazine had little more than seventy thousand circulation. By its conclusion, it was well on its way to the quarter-million mark.
The transition of THE POPULAR MAGAZINE to a publication of broader interest was not confined to Ayesha alone. While that novel was still running, MacLean secured first American serialization of H. G. Wells' The Crowning Victory (February-July, 1905). Wellsians may indeed start in wonder at the title of a novel by that distinguished author that they had not previously heard of, but they need not, because the story had actually been published more than live years earlier as Love and Mr. Lewisham. A pleasant love story of a youthful "assistant master" at Whitley Proprietory School in England, it lent a further literary tone to a pulp adventure magazine that also ran a poem by Theodore Dreiser, Bondage, in its January, 1905, issue.
Charles Agnew MacLean had become good friends with Dreiser, when that "moody giant" was doing articles for Street & Smith's Ainslee's and editing dime novels for them at fifteen dollars a week. MacLean also advanced the five hundred dollars to buy back the plates of Dreiser's Sister Carrie from Doubleday. When Street & Smith was looking for an editor to manage its new magazine, SMITH'S, it was MacLean's endorsement that got Dreiser the job.
The magazine, which was launched April, 1905, would eventually have as a contributor of short stories an eccentric, puffy little man named Charles Hoy Fort, whose interest in bizarre and inexplicable phenomena meshed with that of Theodore Dreiser. They had both been cub reporters on New York newspapers and they became firm friends. Dreiser would eventually publish Fort's first book of fiction and in later years seriously intended to write the man's biography. In the interim he helped him polish his work and encouraged MacLean to publish him. THE POPULAR MAGAZINE ran four short stories by Charles Fort in June, August, September, and December, 1905, none fantasy or science fiction, and none particularly outstanding. Several others by Charles Fort would appear in THE ARGOSY during 1905 and 1906.
One of the most popular characters in popular magazine fiction 1897 to 1903 had been Captain Kettle, a cocky and imaginative sprite of a sea captain. That character made its author, Cutcliffe Hyne, one of the most solicited magazine fictioneers of his time. The presentation of a completely new series built around the character of Commander John Kelly McTurk, USN, was a circulation winner for THE POPULAR MAGAZINE, beginning with the September, 1905, number. To the staff of contributors were also added that outstanding spinner of tales of the sea, Morgan Robertson; the acclaimed mystery story writer, Richard Marsh; one of the most popular authors of historical adventure who ever lived, Rafael Sabatini; and such strong figures of the time as Louis Joseph Vance, Louis Tracy, and Francis Lynde, the latter especially noted for his fine railroad stories.
These strong authors and features were not rationed out, but ran side by side. Most of the twelve covers for 1905 were strong action scenes from lead stories. The advent of 1906 found the publication so strong in circulation that it could safely revert to family-type and still-life covers, offering an acceptable appearance for any drawing-room table.
THE POPULAR MAGAZINE made a dramatic move in ending the year 1906 with an increase in price to fifteen cents and an increase in pages to 224. It was counting on catching and holding the American middle class who would pay the fifty-percent increase. The estimate of appeal was correct. The magazine held its readership and climbed to three hundred thousand copies a month. Additionally, there were forty or more pages of advertising, printed on slick paper in the front and rear of the magazine. THE POPULAR MAGAZINE was indeed a threat to the leadership of THE ARGOSY.
No one was more acutely aware of this than Frank A. Munsey, THE ARGOSY'S publisher. He had watched THE POPULAR MAGAZINE from its first issue, and even before it hit its stride with the H. Rider Haggard serial, had come to an accurate conclusion. There was room for more than one fiction pulp in the field, possibly room for a number. To capitalize on it, he had the alternatives of either increasing the frequency of publication of THE ARGOSY or issuing another pulp magazine. If there was going to be competition, he might just as well compete with himself.
Rather than tamper with the successful formula of THE ARGOSY, he decided to issue a companion, one that would be a carbon copy in size, price, and story mix, and also published on a monthly basis. It would be called THE ALL-STORY MAGAZINE.
4. FRANK A. MUNSEY
FRANK ANDREW MUNSEY, at the time he placed the first issue of THE ALL-STORY MAGAZINE on sale, dated January, 1905, was already making one million dollars a year net, primarily from two publications, MUNSEY'S MAGAZINE and THE ARGOSY; he would go on to publish other magazines, and at one time or another own eighteen different newspapers. The ruthlessness with which he killed or merged newspapers that didn't pay their way earned him the enmity of both the publishers and the reporters of the nation. He did not make friends easily, had little personal warmth, never married, devoted all his time to his business, and when he died from a burst appendix on December 22, 1925, was worth forty million dollars, the bulk of which he left to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which some contend he had never entered.
Born August 21, 1854, near the town of Mercer, Maine, his father, Andrew Chauncey, was a farmer-carpenter, and his mother, Mary Jane Hopkins, always felt she was a linear descendant of someone who came over on the Mayflower. A wealthy Munsey later set a genealogist on the track and not only verified five ancestors who came over on the Mayflower bill also located the most incredible (but factual) group of generals, governors, and judges on both sides of the Atlantic that ever graced the family tree of any American.
His family skirted the thin edge of poverty, and Frank A. Munsey received no higher education. He said that as a boy he was a "visionary," speaking of his dreams
of "a brighter and more beautiful world." As a youth he "had a knack for mechanical gadgetry," and as he grew older and more prosperous, "was a pioneer automobilist and one of the very early passengers in an airplane. He craved things modern and up-to-date." These two qualities, utopianism and a love for invention and novelty, go a long way toward explaining his toleration of an inordinate amount of science fiction in his publications, considering that they were aimed at a general audience. Though in later years it was said that he read little in his magazines, there is no question that he set policy. He hired no one to tell him what kind of magazine to publish, nor was he grateful for such suggestions. He would change the approach of his magazine either through careful deliberation or through whim. Often he made all the magazines alter simultaneously to comply with his desires.
If he decided his pulps should have interior illustrations, they all had interior illustrations and all started the new policy the closest possible month. If he decided it was time to raise the price to fifteen cents, all his publications went to fifteen cents, and if possible, the same month.
He loved his mother devotedly and did not leave his home town until she died in 1882. He had little respect or admiration for his father, who he theorized had never amounted to anything because marriage had trapped him with a wife and children. This is offered as a psychological explanation of why he never married, though his own explanation, that he was too occupied with business when young and too old when rich, appears more logical.
Nearby Augusta, Maine, was a publishing center of some importance. PEOPLE'S LITERARY COMPANION and VICKERY'S FIRESIDE VISITOR, dollar-a-year publications with tremendous reception in the rural communities, were headquartered and printed there. They were intended primarily as advertising media, with a leavening of stories, religion, fashion, agriculture, and pictures. By today's standards they were pabulum, but hundreds of thousands of readers across the nation found pleasure in them.
Under the Moons of Mars: A History and Anthology of the Scientific Romance in the Munsey Magazines, 1912-1920 Page 43