Argosy was an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
pulp magazinePulp magazines were inexpensive fiction magazines. They were widely published from 1896 through the 1950s. The term pulp fiction can also refer to mass market paperbacks since the 1950s....
, published by
Frank MunseyFrank Andrew Munsey was an American newspaper and magazine publisher and author. He was born in Mercer, Maine but spent most of his life in New York City...
. It is generally considered to be the first American pulp magazine. The magazine began as a general information periodical entitled
The Golden Argosy, targeted at the boys adventure market.
In late September 1882, Munsey had moved to
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
to start
Argosy, having arranged a partnership with a friend already in New York and working in the publishing industry, and with a
stock brokerA stock broker or stockbroker is a regulated professional broker who buys and sells shares and other securities through market makers or Agency Only Firms on behalf of investors.- United States :...
from
Augusta, MaineAugusta is the capital of the U.S. state of Maine, county seat of Kennebec County, and center of population for Maine . The city's population was 18,560 at the 2000 census. Located on the Kennebec River at the head of tide, it is home to the University of Maine at Augusta.- History :The area was...
, Munsey's previous home.
Argosy was an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
pulp magazinePulp magazines were inexpensive fiction magazines. They were widely published from 1896 through the 1950s. The term pulp fiction can also refer to mass market paperbacks since the 1950s....
, published by
Frank MunseyFrank Andrew Munsey was an American newspaper and magazine publisher and author. He was born in Mercer, Maine but spent most of his life in New York City...
. It is generally considered to be the first American pulp magazine. The magazine began as a general information periodical entitled
The Golden Argosy, targeted at the boys adventure market.
Launch of Argosy
In late September 1882, Munsey had moved to
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
to start
Argosy, having arranged a partnership with a friend already in New York and working in the publishing industry, and with a
stock brokerA stock broker or stockbroker is a regulated professional broker who buys and sells shares and other securities through market makers or Agency Only Firms on behalf of investors.- United States :...
from
Augusta, MaineAugusta is the capital of the U.S. state of Maine, county seat of Kennebec County, and center of population for Maine . The city's population was 18,560 at the 2000 census. Located on the Kennebec River at the head of tide, it is home to the University of Maine at Augusta.- History :The area was...
, Munsey's previous home. Munsey put most of his money, around $500, into purchasing stories for the magazine.
Once he was in New York, the stock broker backed out, and Munsey decided to release his New York friend from involvement, since they were now hopelessly underfunded. Munsey then pitched the magazine to a New York publisher, and managed to convince him to publish the magazine and hire Munsey as editor.
The first issue was published on December 2, 1882, (dated December 9, 1882, a common practice at the time) and came out weekly. The first issue was eight pages, cost five cents, and included the first installments of serialized stories by
Horatio Alger, Jr.Horatio Alger, Jr. was a prolific 19th-century American author whose principal output was formulaic juvenile novels that followed the adventures of bootblacks, newsboys, peddlers, buskers, and other impoverished children in their rise from humble backgrounds to lives of respectable middle-class...
and
Edward S. EllisEdward Sylvester Ellis was an American author who was born in Ohio and died at Cliff Island, Maine.Ellis was a teacher, school administrator, and journalist, but his most notable work was that that he performed as author of hundreds of dime novels that he produced under his name and a number of...
.
Other authors associated with
Argosy's early days include Annie Ashmoore,
Gertrude Barrows BennettGertrude Barrows Bennett was the first major female writer of fantasy and science fiction in the United States, publishing her stories under the pseudonym Francis Stevens. Bennett wrote a number of highly acclaimed fantasies between 1917 and 1923 and has been called "the woman who invented dark...
(under the pseudonym Francis Stevens), W. H. W. Campbell,
Harry CastlemonCharles Austin Fosdick , better known by his nom de plume Harry Castlemon, was a prolific writer of juvenile stories and novels, intended mainly for boys. He was born in Randolph, New York, and received a high school diploma from Central High School in Buffalo, New York...
, Frank H. Converse, George H. Coomer, Mary A. Denison,
Malcolm DouglasMalcolm Douglas was a New Zealand politician of the Labour Party.He represented the Hunua electorate from 25 November 1978 after the 1978 general election, until 24 May 1979, when he was unseated by a decision of the Electoral Court in favour of Winston Peters...
, Colonel A.B. Ellis, J. L. Harbour, D. O. S. Lowell, Oliver Optic, Richard H. Titherington, Edgar L. Warren and Matthew White, Jr., (who served for some time as editor).
Five months after the first issue, the publisher went bankrupt and entered
receivershipReceivership is used to denote a situation in which an institution or enterprise is being held by a receiver. In law, a receiver is a person "placed in the custodial responsibility for the property of others, including tangible and intangible assets and rights." Various types of receiver...
. By placing a claim for his unpaid salary, Munsey managed to assume control of the magazine. It was a very unlikely financial proposition; subscriptions had been sold which had to be fulfilled, but Munsey had almost no money and credit from printers and other suppliers was impossible to come by. Munsey borrowed $300 from a friend in Maine, and managed to scrape along as he learned the fundamentals of the publishing industry.
Munsey found that targeting children had been a mistake, as they did not stay subscribed for any length of time, since they grew out of reading the magazine. Additionally, children did not have much money to spend, which limited the number of advertisers interested in reaching them.
Shift towards Pulp Fiction
In December 1888 the title was changed to
The Argosy. Publication switched from weekly to monthly in April 1894, at which time the magazine began its shift towards pulp fiction. It eventually published its first all-fiction issue in 1896. The magazine switched back to a weekly publication schedule in October 1917. In January 1919,
The Argosy merged with
Railroad Man's Magazine, and was briefly known as
Argosy and Railroad Man's Magazine.
All-Story Magazine
All-Story Magazine was another Munsey pulp. First published January 1905, it was published monthly for 11 years. A subsequent change to a weekly schedule led to a name change to
All-Story Weekly. Eventually it merged with
The Cavalier, after which it was known as
All-Story Cavalier Weekly for a time, before the name was changed back.
Today,
All-Story is chiefly remembered as the magazine which first published Edgar Rice Burroughs, publishing
A Princess of MarsA Princess of Mars is an Edgar Rice Burroughs science fiction novel, the first of his famous Barsoom series. It is also Burroughs' first novel, predating his Tarzan stories...
in serial form, and later
The Gods of MarsThe Gods of Mars is a 1918 Edgar Rice Burroughs science fiction novel, the second of his famous Barsoom series. It was first published in All-Story as a five-part serial in the issues for January-May 1913. It was later published as a complete novel by A. C...
.
In 1920,
All-Story Weekly was merged into
The Argosy, resulting in a new title,
Argosy All-Story Weekly.
Argosy All-Story Weekly
In November 1941 the magazine switched to bi-weekly publication, then monthly publication in July 1942. The most significant change occurred in September 1943 when the magazine not only changed from pulp to slick paper but began to shift away from its all-fiction content. Over the next few years the fiction content grew smaller (though still with the occasional short-story writer of stature, such as
P. G. WodehouseSir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE was an English writer whose body of work includes novels, collections of short stories, and musical theatre. Wodehouse enjoyed enormous popular success during a career of more than seventy years and his prolific writings continue to be widely read...
), and the "men's magazine" material expanded. The final issue of the original magazine was published in November 1978.
Genres
During its original 96-year run, it published works in a number of
literary genresGenre fiction, also known as popular fiction, is a term for fictional works written with the intent of fitting into a specific literary genre in order to appeal to readers and fans already familiar with that genre...
, including
science fictionScience fiction is a genre of fiction. It differs from fantasy in that, within the context of the story, its imaginary elements are largely possible within scientifically-established or scientifically-postulated laws of nature...
and Westerns.
Edgar Rice BurroughsEdgar Rice Burroughs was an American author, best known for his creation of the jungle hero Tarzan and the heroic Mars adventurer John Carter, although he produced works in many genres.-Biography:...
published some of his
TarzanTarzan is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungle by fictional great apes, who later returns to civilization only to largely reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer...
and John Carter of Mars stories in the magazine. Other authors who appeared in the original run included
Ellis Parker ButlerEllis Parker Butler was an American author.Butler was born in Muscatine, Iowa. He was the author of more than 30 books and more than 2,000 stories and essays, and is most famous for his short story "Pigs is Pigs", in which a bureaucratic stationmaster insists on levying the livestock rate for a...
,
Max BrandFrederick Faust, aka Max Brand|thumb|rightFrederick Schiller Faust was an American author known primarily for his thoughtful and literary Westerns. Faust wrote mostly under pen names, but today is primarily known by only one, Max Brand...
and
Robert E. HowardRobert Ervin Howard was an American author who wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. His most famous character — created in the pages of the Depression-era pulp magazine Weird Tales — is Conan the Barbarian.With Conan and his other heroes, Howard created the genre of...
. Towards the end, it became associated with the
men's adventureframe|The March 1963 cover of For Men Only promised, among other things, "[[Swastika]] Slave Girls in [[Argentina]]'s No-Escape [[Brothel]] Camp!"Men's adventure is a genre of magazines that had its heyday in the 1950s and 1960s...
pulp genre of "true" stories of conflict with wild animals or
warWar is a reciprocated, armed conflict, between two or more non-congruous entities, aimed at reorganising a subjectively designed, geo-politically desired result...
time combat,
Erle Stanley GardnerErle Stanley Gardner was an American lawyer and author of detective stories, who also published under the pseudonyms A.A. Fair, Kyle Corning, Charles M. Green, Carleton Kendrake, Charles J...
's articles on The Court of Last Resort, and later it was considered a
softcoreSoftcore pornography is a form of filmic or photographic pornography or erotica that is less sexually explicit than hardcore pornography. Softcore pornography depicts nude and semi-nude performers engaging in casual social nudity or non-graphic representations of sexual intercourse or masturbation...
men's magazine.
Revivals
The magazine was revived briefly from 1990 to 1994. There were only five issues published sporadically during that time. A quarterly published slick revival began in 2004. It briefly went on hiatus before resuming publication in 2005 as
Argosy Quarterly. The focus of this version was on new, original fiction. It is no longer being published.
UK Argosy
A British
Argosy magazine (also known as “
The Argosy”) was founded by Alexander Strahan in 1865, and later owned and edited by
Ellen WoodEllen Wood may refer to:* Ellen Price Wood, English novelist, better known as "Mrs. Henry Wood".* Ellen Meiksins Wood, historian and critic of political theory* Thelma Ellen Wood, artist, model for Robin Vote in Djuna Barnes's novel Nightwood...
. It ran through 1901.
A later British
Argosy was a short story magazine in paperback size, published from 1957 to 1962, with stories and serials by leading authors, plus page-fillers of ostensibly amusing quotations, excerpts and cartoons.
External links