Polaris is a man who has been raised in Antarctica and has never come in contact with any human being other than his father. He is in tune with his environment and possesses herculean strength and extraordinary intelligence. Upon the death of his father he sets north with a sledge and seven huskies. He rescues a girl who has been cast away on the antarctic shore, and on his trek across the icy wastes, kills great white bears with nothing more than his knife (the author was unaware that there are no bears at the South Pole, but alert readers did call the fact to his attention). Eventually they arrive in a valley, heated by a circle of volcanoes, in which an ancient Greek colony still survives. The population is kept under control by voluntary euthanasia. His adventures there were in keeping with Burroughs' Martian prototypes.
Polaris was published as Polaris of the Snows in three issues of ALL-STORY WEEKLY, December 18, 1915-January 1, 1916. It was a milestone in the development of the scientific romance, because it obviously was entirely influenced by Edgar Rice Burroughs. It helped create the trend toward the scientific romance, which at times during the next twenty years would be the most popular form of science fiction.
It was evident that there was room for more than one author in the Burroughs vein. It was also evident that science fiction, which too closely predicted scientific or sociological developments, was becoming frightening rather than Utopian. The greatest war in the history of mankind was in progress in Europe, and as the weapons of science, such as the submarine, zeppelin, airplane, machine gun, and later poison gas and tanks, played a nightmarish role in the conflict. The widely held belief that science would cure all the ills of mankind was shattered. Preceding the entry of the United States into the conflict, the Munsey magazines followed an official policy of limiting war stories in their pages. They became the magazines of escape. The scientific romances of Edgar Rice Burroughs, George Allan England, and Charles B. Stilson ideally fitted this policy, though they were still a long way from replacing traditional science fiction or even significant science fiction. The year 1915 had seen a number of unusual stories. Perley Poore Sheehan had come through with a four-part novel, Judith of Babylon (February 6-27), that was a remarkable anticipation of the use of propaganda, public relations, religion, and hypnotism to gain control of the masses. In that story, New York City is converted to the worship of Baal, and a second Babylon comes into being, whose existence threatens the nation.
The concept of Lilliputian man was modernized in Terror Island (July 3, 1915) by Alex Shell Briscoe and might have been dropped into a magazine thirty years later, with its tiny humans fighting giant insects, and seemed acceptable.
J. U. Giesy had embarked on the first of a series of humorous invention stories, better handled than most, with a story submitted as Bumb and the Bomb and published as The Indigestible Dog Biscuits in the same issue as Terror Island. It told of a device that explodes gunpowder without wires or fuses.
George Allan England had returned with The Fatal Gift (September 4-25), a four-part novel of the effort to impart to a woman who has every other mental and physical attribute, supreme facial beauty. Though he had created a situation in which there were powerful human and moral consequences to explore, England literally permitted the story to degenerate into a squabble and sword fight, throwing away excellent serious possibilities.
A far more remarkable and historically important work of his was the short story The Tenth Question (December 18). A doctor is lured to the home of a mad scientist who has a grudge against surgeons, since one did him a grievous wrong through a diagnostic error. The doctor is locked in a cage and told he will be given his freedom only if he can guess what the scientist is thinking of and in the process asking not more than ten questions. If he succeeds, he will go free. If he fails, he will be killed. He succeeds in guessing that the thought in the mind of his captor is the symbol "zero," and is freed, but the scientist still tries to kill him, and is himself killed.
There was an unexpected "sequel."
After the death of Stanley G. Weinbaum, outstanding science-fiction writer of the 1930's, an unpublished short story was found among his effects, which was printed in the December, 1936, issue of THRILLING WONDER STORIES as The Brink of Infinity. It was about a mathematician lured to the home of a madman, who imprisoned him and said he would free him only if with the use of only ten questions he could determine the "mathematical quantity" he had in mind. If he failed, he would be killed, because an incompetent mathematician had been responsible for crippling his captor through an erroneous calculation. The first guess the mathematician makes is "zero," but when that proves wrong, he finally deduces it is "infinity minus itself and is freed, but the madman tries to kill him and is in turn killed.
It seems quite impossible that Weinbaum got the idea from any other source than England. But he never offered it for sale, and its publication posthumously was by chance. The most ironic thing concerning it is that, despite its derivation, it is a minor masterpiece.
The foregoing, together with a now-renowned cloak-and-dagger thriller titled The Thirty-Nine Steps, by John Buchan, published as a two-parter in the June 5 and 12 issues were well received, but it was Polaris of the Snows that best suited the mood of the readers.
The author whose method and character were Stilson's model, Edgar Rice Burroughs, had The Son of Tarzan, a six-part novel, running concurrently with Polaris (December 4, 1915-January 8, 1916). Korak, Tarzan's son, now a teen-ager, inherits the great strength and jungle instincts of his father. A series of circumstances causes him to revert to the primitive with Akut, a great ape who once fought by his father's side. He grows to manhood, achieves Tarzan's physical prowess and aptitude with the animals, and finally marries an "Arab" girl who is actually the missing daughter of a French officer.
Sensing that even the artist P. Monahan had completely caught the mood of the Polaris story, Charles B. Stilson wrote a letter from 30 Exchange Street, Rochester, New York, which appeared in the January 22, 1916, issue, complimenting: "The Polaris from Mr. Monahan's brushes is so true to the Polaris I have seen in my imagination that the likeness actually startled me when 1 first saw it at the magazine stand. I should like Mr. Monahan to know that."
The very issue publishing that letter included the last installment of a four-part novel by Victor Rousseau, which had begun in the January 1, 1916, issue, The Sea Demons, which closely fitted the new trend. A horde of invisible deep-sea men invade the land areas of England behind the weapon of deadly quantities of hydrogen gas. Their motivation is hunger. The beautiful, almost translucent queen of the invaders is captured, and her mating instinct is aroused by the presence of Donald, the hero of the story. She issues a strange whistle which causes the sea men to "swarm" back to the sea. The rest of the race is sterile without her, and by not mating at her appointed time she quickly ages and dies, and with her perishes the monstrous horde.
Both Charles B. Stilson, primarily a writer of western and adventure stories, and Victor Rousseau, whose last name was Emanual, were destined to become highly popular writers of the scientific romances in future issues of the Munsey magazines. Rousseau had the greater literary pretentions of the two. Born in London in 1879 of a Jewish father and French mother, the thought of being half Jewish tormented him most of his life, and he converted to Catholicism after having spent several years in South Africa, where he received his first journalistic training. He came to the United States and secured an editorial position on a magazine. "T was delighted when 1 found myself able to crash ALL-STORY and ARGOSY through the kindly interest of the god-father of so many writers in this country, that revered and almost legendary character, Bob Davis," he wrote in an autobiographical sketch published in 1931.
Victor Rousseau reached the high point in his literary career with the serialization of his novel The Messiah of the Cylinder in the June-September, 1917, issues of EVERYBODY'S MAGAZINE. The novel was Rousseau's version of When the Sleeper Wakes (1899), by H. G. Wells, and many of the things that Wells lightly touche
s on in his world of the future, where a man in suspended animation for hundreds of years arises to find himself near owner of the world, are explored in more personal terms by Rousseau.
Howard D. Wheeler, editor of EVERYBODY'S MAGAZINE, was greatly impressed by the novel and made it the subject of a cover painting by Everett Shinn, a member of the artistic "The Eight" with John Sloan, and commissioned numerous line drawings by Joseph Clement Coll, some of which were reproduced in the book version published by A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago, in 1917. Coll was characterized as "perhaps America's greatest virtuoso in the use of pen and ink" by Harold Von Schmidt in The Illustrators of America 1900-1960's (Reinhold Publishing Company, 1966). Further, "he commanded an awesome technical dexterity. He employed his penpoint as freely as a paintbrush," and was especially favored "for mystery stories by such authors as A. Conan Doyle and Sax Rohmer."
The Messiah of the Cylinder has the grave fault of imitation and suffers from lapses into pulp-writing carelessness; the bias of the author toward Catholicism is enough to embarrass a pope. All these faults acknowledged, it is a better story than When the Sleeper Wakes, moving forward with a drive and vitality rare in any novel. The author's presentation of a socialist tyranny of the future must be termed brilliant rather than ingenious, as he fascinatingly delineates its basis, regulations, terminology, and slang. This is all accomplished without ever losing the authenticity of relating these changes to human nature. It is on this last point, in his ability to offer psychological motivation for the actions of his characters, that portions of the novel achieve memorable poignancy. Despite its flaws, it is one of the most vigorous and readable "warning" stories ever to appear in science fiction.
In addition to the regular announcement in "Heart to Heart Talks," Bob Davis had given The Sea Demons, by Victor Rousseau, a full-page splash facing the opening story of the December 25, 1915, issue, in which he raved: "Not since Rudyard Kipling wrote With the Night Mail and created out of his own imagination, complete from keel to conning tower and from gas tanks to pithing iron, an air greyhound that could cross the Atlantic in a night—a real airship, as convincing as a motorboat—has anything so realistic in the way of pure fantasy been written as The Sea Demons."
Rousseau's novel was in dramatic contrast to The Air Trust, by George Allan England, published in 1915 by Phil Wager, St. Louis. Bob Davis, who had serialized The Golden Blight, had better sense than to schedule this one, which told of a monopoly gaining control of the air and planning to enslave the masses in exchange for permitting them to breathe. The book came out for overthrow of the existing government by violent revolution and was illustrated by John Sloan, an artist with strong socialistic leanings. The artwork was probably contributed and the publication paid for by the author. Davis did give it a plug in the January 29, 1916, ALL-STORY WEEKLY, stating: "... The Air Trust, in which the author attempts to show that monopoly may someday reach the very air we breathe, is now on sale at all book stores for $1.25 a copy.
"We did not publish The Air Trust in these pages, but nevertheless I sincerely hope that it will become one of the best-sellers. It was dedicated to Eugene V. Debs and is published by the National Ripsaw Company, St. Louis, Missouri."
The January 1, 1916, issue, in which The Sea Demons began, also contained installments of Polaris of the Snows and The Son of Tarzan. Apparently the circulation of ALL-STORY MAGAZINE needed a shot in the arm again, and the one quick, sure way Davis knew was to lard it up with fantasy.
What was the circulation of ALL-STORY MAGAZINE in 1916? A figure of "200,000 weekly" was published in the issue of December 2, 1916, in reply to a letter by a youngster who would one day become a science-fiction author, Wallace West. There is reason to doubt that figure, based on the published line rates for classified ads of the various Munsey magazines. The highest was MUNSEY'S MAGAZINE, at two dollars a line; THE ARGOSY was second, at $1.30, THE RAILROAD MAN'S MAGAZINE third with eighty cents, and ALL-STORY WEEKLY last with sixty cents. MUNSEY'S had claimed four hundred thousand circulation in 1912 and had raised the price to fifteen cents from ten cents. By Frank A. Munsey's own admission, there had been a gradual decline in circulation as a result. It is quite probable that MUNSEY'S MAGAZINE was selling about three hundred thousand in 1915, for in November of that year the price had been reduced to ten cents to regain circulation.
If MUNSEY'S circulation was as estimated, ALL-STORY WEEKLY could have been selling as few as one hundred thousand, based on the ratio of its ad rate to circulation, and even THE ARGOSY only two hundred thousand. If MUNSEY'S MAGAZINE had retained its four hundred thousand circulation of 1912, ALL-STORY MAGAZINE, at a maximum, could not have been doing over one hundred twenty-five thousand in weekly sales.
Were the Frank A. Munsey Company to receive one hundred per cent of the proceeds from the sale of ALL-STORY WEEKLY on one hundred thousand, it would have grossed ten thousand dollars. However, it had to give the newsdealers IVi cents a copy, so that left seventy-five hundred dollars. Since each issue ran well over one hundred thousand words, stories cost one thousand dollars per issue. In addition to Bob Davis, there was at least one other editor working on the magazine, plus a secretary. Paper, printing, and distribution were other major costs to be deducted from gross receipts. In balance, Munsey had his own ultramodern printing plant, so those costs were rock bottom. Munsey did his own distribution, eliminating the distributor's profit. It is still understandable why illustrations were left out: with an average of ten to fifteen stories an issue, even at five dollars a drawing they were important money, particularly when the price of making the engravings was added to the total.
In this tight situation, an author like Edgar Rice Burroughs presented a magazine like ALL-STORY WEEKLY, which obviously did not operate on a too generous margin of profit, with an economic problem. Davis had paid three thousand dollars for the hundred thousand word The Son of Tarzan on May 25, 1916. That was obviously the budget for three entire issues. The low rate of two-thirds cent a word received by Stilson and other authors was necessary to try to keep expenditures in line.
On June 17, 1917, Bob Davis rejected a novelette of Edgar Rice Burroughs titled Ben, King of Beasts. The core of the story involved a lion with a black mane whose life is saved by an American and who shows affection in acknowledgment of the fact. When the lion is captured and brought to the United States, it escapes but chances upon the American who saved its life, inadvertently helping him solve a serious problem. The story was not up to Burroughs' standard, but quite readable and entertaining. NEW STORY MAGAZINE also rejected it on July 3, 1915, but THE NEW YORK EVENING WORLD, which had reprinted Burroughs' novels in serial form since 1913, and through 1918 would run about a dozen, published it in six daily installments, November 15-20, 1915, under the title of The Man Eater. The paper sold for only one cent, so a Burroughs fan could obtain the complete work for only six cents.
Another short story, titled Beyond Thirty, was rejected by Bob Davis September 7, 1915. He asserted that it was a superb tableau, but he felt that nothing happened in the story. Its jumping-off place from World War I was also held against it, since ALL-STORY WEEKLY had a policy of minimizing war stories. The story had first been submitted to THE SATURDAY EVENING POST, where it was refused August 13, 1915.
Beyond Thirty takes place two hundred years in the future, and in that entire time the continents of North and South America have been cut off from Europe because of submarine attacks and floating mines. The line of demarcation is 30 W, which is the derivation of the title. A plane which accidentally crosses this line ends up in England, and it is found that Europe has degenerated to savagery, and lions and tigers roam the sites of demolished cities. Abyssinia, which never entered the war, is relatively strong enough to prey upon the divided, disorganized, and diminished European nations. China has conquered all of the Far East and is the dominant power. The story was submitted to NEW STORY MAGAZINE, which had just changed its title with the December, 1915, issue to ALL-AROUND MAGAZINE, where it was pub
lished in the February, 1916, issue. The magazine badly needed the boost, for it was in serious trouble, but the one-shot wasn't enough to save it, and it expired with its March, 1917, number.
The rejection of Beyond Thirty was difficult to understand. It was one of Burroughs' most imaginative works up to that time, and only its dating upon the end of World War I prevented its being reprinted in book form during Burroughs' lifetime. To accept The Girl from Farris' (which still had not been published) just to keep Burroughs from going elsewhere, and then to permit Ben, King of Beasts, and Beyond Thirty to go elsewhere seemed inconsistent.
When Bob Davis wrote Burroughs on November 20, 1915, that he didn't like the new Tarzan novel, Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar, and would consider it only if the rate were cut, the situation seemed to clarify. ALL-STORY WEEKLY was experiencing difficulties in building a profitable circulation, and this was affecting their ability and willingness to pay.
Burroughs sensed the situation and hopped a train for New York from Chicago. He visited Bob Davis at 8 West 40th Street on November 22, 1915, and had a long discussion about the matter. When he left to return to Chicago, the price had not yet been decided upon. On December 16, 1915, a check went out for twenty-five hundred dollars. While this was five hundred dollars less than for The Son of Tarzan, it actually represented an increase in rates, for Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar was but sixty thousand words long, as compared to the former's one hundred thousand.
It can be seen that both Edgar Rice Burroughs and Bob Davis now had a problem. Burroughs realized that, temporarily at least, there was a ceiling on the rate of pay he could expect from ALL-STORY WEEKLY, and that exception from rejection was a thing of the past. Bob Davis understood that he could no longer hope to keep Burroughs on a near-exclusive basis and that it would tax his budget to buy from him even occasionally. Yet he needed what Burroughs had to offer to sustain and build the readership of his weekly.
Under the Moons of Mars: A History and Anthology of the Scientific Romance in the Munsey Magazines, 1912-1920 Page 55