Even a curator for the Crocker Art Museum wrote for the pulps

By Kimberly A. Edwards

On any given day, you’ll find my phone clicking on images of magazines from as early as the 1920s. When I began collecting vintage works by members of the California Writers Club Sacramento, never did I expect to experience such intrigue. We’re planning our 100^th year centennial. The magazine covers I’m plucking from the Internet, many known as “pulps,” are a hoot by today’s standards: alluring young women in bonnets, males with magnifying glasses, and dinosaur-type figures with long stretched necks.

Early California Writers Club member Alice Marie Dodge wrote for pulps as soon as she could find an editor, likely before 1925. True Story, touted as the first “confession”magazine, kept readers turning pages as did Street & Smith’s Love Story Magazine, Droll Stories, Young’s Realistic Stories, Sweetheart Stories, and Trapped Detective Story Magazine. “The Nymph and the Doctor” and “The Torso by the Road” are but two of her titles. Other authors lured readers with “Blonde by the Roadside,” “Killer in the Closet,” “Finger Man,” “Murder in the Elevator,” “One Night of Folly,” and “Suicide Bridge”.

Who wouldn’t be lured by these titles?

“She put Madness in my Veins” and “Greatly Enlarged” are equally salacious.

In 1923, an equally tempting magazine named Weird Tales came out, which was devoted to gothic fantasy and horror. The first issue featured “Ooze, described as “A Novelette of a Thousand Thrills.” The covers were as important as the content, setting readers salivating to enter the realm of the dark and macabre. Weird Tales attracted many authors, launching the careers of H.P. Lovecraft, Ray Bradbury, Robert E. Howard and Ashton Clark Smith of Auburn.  

Weird Tales published stories work by Henry Noyes Pratt, the distinguished president of the California Writers Club, who in 1936 became curator of the Crocker Art Museum. His story in the August, 1930 issue was called, “The Curse of Ximer-Tal,” depicted on the cover as a monster which turns out to be a snake. Other titles in the issue include, “The Hills of the Dead,” “The Electric Executioner,” and “Earthworms of Karma.”

By mid-century, a new genre pulled out its guns with True Treasure, True, Frontier, Pioneer West, True West, Frontier Times, Real West, True Western Adventure, Old West, etc. Leo Rosenhouse wrote “The Rage of Captain Jack,” “The Medic who Terrorized the West,” and “The Doctor who Plundered the West.” Titles by other authors included: “The Man Killer,” “Spawned to Kill,” “Death Trek to Hell,” “The Bell that Spelled Death,” and “Rape of the Plains.”

Rosenhouse also wrote for Sexology, which as a reflection of the times carried fact drew titles such as“Giants are Important,” “Strange Sex,” “Fixations,” and “Sex and Space Travel” thrown in with a scandalous splash.

Then surged the Confessions, those magazines we all wanted to peek into but not be seen with,  coming in waves, Modern Romances, Secrets, My Romance, True Confessions, True Experience, True Love, and True Romance. Editors of these magazines snappedup stories by members of our club in the 1970’s. Tales of sin, suffering, and sorrow made agony more enjoyable than desert. As dramatic as the stories were, they are entertaining to read today.  

So can I complain about being buried under these covers and titillating titles? Actually, it’s a cozy place to be.

In truth, while interest in the pulp has waned, recognition of their value lurks around the corner. These old magazines, symbols of the past, are as alluring to some as the Internet. They inform us about what was going on economically at the time. They require us to read a story from beginning to end. They help us to escape current headlines. The problem is that most issues being old require care. Some are crumbling. Pages fall out. Paper close to turning to mush, thought the content remains puree.

And then there are those who long to go back to those days. The days when all we had to worry about was sex, murders, and monsters. Wasn’t life simpler then?

Kimberly A. Edwards chairs the California Writers Club Centennial Gala Committee – 100 Years of Writing Excellence in Sacramento. Writers of all genres are invited to witnesses a display and slide show of rare books and magazines in honor early of Sacramento writers and those who love writing and inspiring others. See CWCSacramentoWriters.org for information on this October 18 event.