The Classic Era of American Pulp Magazines

Book excerpt: The period between the World Wars—the era of sexual liberation, Prohibition, the rise of organized crime, and the Great Depression—was also the classic era of American pulp magazines, the subject of this fascinating volume. Pulps, with their lurid color covers depicting the thrills of sex and violence, and with stories to match inside, fuelled America’s dreams—and nightmares. For a few cents they offered everything young men wanted: sex, action, adventure. But they also fostered the talents of some of the greatest popular writers of the century—Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain, and Dashiell Hammett, among others—and virtually invented the genres of science fiction and hard-boiled crime. From the cheap thrills of the “hot” and “spicy” pulps and the sexual sadism of the “shudder” pulps to the weird worlds of the fantasy, sci-fi, and horror pulps, this book displays their art and tells their history, capturing the original magazines in all their sleazy, sensational glory.