Coming November 13th!

Grandma Never Drank Whiskey When Jock Stanford bets the company on a flashy new speedboat, old Chugger Brown turns back to a forgotten mahogany relic—“Nell,” the lady of yesterday. Can an aging boat, souped up with forbidden power, out-race a cutthroat rival and save them all—or will she splinter like a tree in a storm?

Adventure magazine debuted in November 1910 from The Ridgway Company (a Butterick subsidiary); the imprint changed to Butterick Publishing Company in October 1926, then to Popular Publications in July 1934, and the magazine continued—through several format shifts—until 1971. What made Adventure special wasn’t only longevity but ambition: under editor Arthur S. Hoffman (1912–1927) it became a rigorously fact-minded market for historically and geographically “correct” tales, ran innovative reader departments (“The Camp-Fire,” “Ask Adventure”), went to a three-times-a-month schedule at its peak, and built an international audience that included Theodore Roosevelt. In October 1935, Time famously saluted it as “The No. 1 Pulp.” Beyond sheer thrills, Adventure was a proving ground for writers who treated far-flung settings with reportorial care—Talbot Mundy, Harold Lamb, H. Bedford-Jones, Rafael Sabatini, Georges Surdez, Gordon MacCreagh, Arthur O. Friel, and many more. The magazine’s pages mixed robust serials with standalone novellas, nurtured ongoing cycles like Lamb’s Cossacks and Mundy’s historical epics, and cultivated unusually engaged reader participation through classifieds like “Wanted-Men and Adventurers” and the “Lost Trails” column. The result was a pulp with a reputation for quality and authenticity that outlasted most rivals. Here are five standout tales from Adventure magazine: 1. "Tros of Samothrace” — Talbot Mundy, Adventure, February 10, 1925. Launches Mundy’s anti-Caesar epic—historical adventure at its boldest, and a signature demonstration of the magazine’s appetite for big, meticulously researched serials. 2. "Khlit” — Harold Lamb, Adventure, November 1, 1917. The first story of Lamb’s gray-bearded Cossack sets the tone for a cycle whose lean prose, cultural breadth, and on-the-ground detail influenced generations of adventure and fantasy writers. 3. "The Pathless Trail” — Arthur O. Friel, Adventure, serialized from October 10, 1921 to November 10, 1921. A landmark Amazon-jungle saga whose field-experience feel epitomizes Adventure’s “you-are-there” realism and helped cement Friel’s reputation as the pulp’s premier explorer-story hand. 4. "The Green Splotches” — T. S. Stribling, Adventure, January 3, 1920. A much-reprinted early science-fiction classic about an alien outpost in South America—evidence that Adventurecould stretch beyond pure swashbuckling into idea-driven speculative fiction. 5. "Don Diego Valdez” — Rafael Sabatini, Adventure, June 18, 1921. An early Captain Blood tale; its presence in Adventure showcases the magazine’s ability to attract top-tier historical romancers and feed material into later landmark novels.  

Chapter 6 of 6 PAIN-MAD VENGEANCE   Trapped in an underground hell of disease and death, Paul Lawton turns his torment into fury to face the monstrous master of the plague! In a climax of fire and madness, the green horror is unmasked—and the true face of evil stares back from beyond the grave!

Chapter 5 of 6 MASTER OF MONSTERS Dragged into the heart of the swamp, Paul Lawton faces the ghastly truth behind the plague—a nightmare kingdom ruled by a man who has become a monster! As living corpses close in and the mad surgeon reveals his hideous revenge, Lawton’s only hope lies between love, horror, and the blazing fires of hell itself!

Chapter 4 of 6 DEATH STRIKES AGAIN In a town gripped by a hideous plague, Paul Lawton races against madness and time to save the woman he loves from a fate written in green fire and death. But when the dead rise and the living vanish into the swamp, the line between man and monster dissolves in a nightmare of horror and revenge!

Chapter 3 of 6 THE DEAD RETURN When the green plague tightens its grip on Rillwood, vengeance rises from the grave with arrows and blood-soaked warnings! Paul Lawton faces madness, murder, and a terror from beyond the veil that no man—or corpse—can escape!

Chapter 2 of 6 ANCIENT ARROWS From the blighted heart of Blackwater Swamp comes a nightmare of deathless tribes and ghastly sacrifice! When Paul Lawton’s fevered wound turns green and a woman’s body hangs riddled with ancient arrows, the swamp’s unholy secrets crawl once more into the light of day!

Chapter 1 of 6 IT BEGINS From the black, stinking depths of Blackwater rises a horror the Wampanoags dared not name! When Paul Lawton’s camera catches the ghastly truth—a human face behind the green glow—madness and murder slither from the slime to claim the living!

Horror Stories was Popular Publications’ most unabashed “weird-menace” showcase, launched in January 1935 as a sister to Terror Tales and Dime Mystery Magazine and ending in April 1941. Conceived under editor Rogers Terrill, the magazine codified the pulps’ shudder formula: an apparent supernatural outrage, relentless peril, and ultimately a (barely) plausible human explanation. Its appeal was intensified by lurid covers—often by John Newton Howitt—whose tableaux of bondage, masks, and mad science became a visual shorthand for the genre’s feverish stakes. Across its run, Horror Stories courted specialists in menace and momentum: Hugh B. Cave, Arthur J. Burks, Arthur Leo Zagat, Norvell W. Page, and Ray Cummings. The blend of breathless pacing and stagey shock made it a newsstand phenomenon in 1935, monthly at first and then bimonthly from 1936 through its wartime demise. Within the Popular Publications line, it functioned as the purest expression of Terrill’s “mystery-horror-credibility” rule, pushing physical hazard and eroticized threat as far as censors and readers would tolerate, yet keeping the solutions rooted in human depravity rather than ghosts. Historically, the magazine matters for crystallizing the weird-menace aesthetic at its peak, training a generation of writers in compressed, high-torque storytelling and providing iconic imagery that later bled into 1940s crime and 1950s horror comics. Today its issues—especially 1935–1937 numbers—are prized by collectors for content and cover art; and its tales remain case studies in how pulp technique manufactures dread: the swift hook, the escalating trap, and the last-page unmasking that converts the monstrous into the monstrous-human. Here are my five standout tales from Horror Stories “Her Lover — Death!” — Wyatt Blassingame — January 1935. A marquee piece from the inaugural issue that fixed the magazine’s house style of feverish menace with rational unwind. “Mate for a Monster” — Hugh B. Cave — March 1935. Early cornerstone by one of the line’s most prolific masters; repeatedly cited in contents lists and reprints. “Death Rocks the Cradle” — John H. Knox — October 1935. A fan-favorite Knox showcase that appears front-and-center on dealer and reprint notes for this issue. “The Dead Hate the Living” — Wayne Rogers — December 1936–January 1937. The lead story in the winter double-date number; its unforgettable title keeps echoing in later horror culture. “The Mole Men Want Your Eyes” — Frederick C. Davis — April–May 1938. Notorious even among shudder-pulp aficionados; later issued as a chapbook and often singled out in histories.

HE MAY BE AFTER YOU! As chilling a masterpiece of psychological derangement as any story published in an American magazine in the 20th century!

Black Mask debuted in April 1920, launched by H. L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan to help subsidize their higher-brow monthly The Smart Set.  In its earliest years it ran a grab-bag of adventure, romance, and occult yarns, but the magazine’s identity snapped into focus when Joseph T. “Cap” Shaw took over as editor in 1926. Shaw cultivated a spare, kinetic prose style and a stable of writers—Dashiell Hammett, Earl Stanley Gardner, Raoul Whitfield, Frederick Nebbel—that forged the hard-boiled idiom and the modern private-eye template.  Shaw's 1926–1936 tenure is widely seen as the magazine’s golden age. After Shaw’s resignation in 1936, Fanny Ellsworth steered the magazine toward more subjective, psychologically driven crime fiction and brought in voices like Cornell Woolrich and Steve Fisher. Popular Publications acquired Black Mask in 1940, installing Kenneth S. White as editor; the pulp finally ceased publication in 1951, with the brand and backlist later absorbed by Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and periodically revived in anthologies and reissues. Black Mask’s significance is hard to overstate: it incubated serials later issued as landmark novels (from Red Harvest to The Maltese Falcon), set the tone for American noir on page and screen, and professionalized a fast, streetwise realism that still shapes crime writing today. Here's a somewhat subjective list of the top 5 black mask stories! Number 5. “Finger Man” — Raymond Chandler, October 1934. This is vintage early Chandler—it has FIRST-PERSON BITE, crooked politics, and the moral weather that soon becomes Philip Marlowe’s world. 4. “Blackmailers Don’t Shoot” — Raymond Chandler, December 1933. Chandler’s print debut; the template for his wise, weary voice and the Hollywood-corruption vein he’d mine for decades. 3. “Knights of the Open Palm” — Carroll John Daly, June 1923. First Race Williams story; establishes the shoot-first hard-boiled private eye and pits him against the Klan—hugely influential. At number 2 is “Red Harvest” (Part 1: “The Cleansing of Poisonville”) — Dashiell Hammett, November 1927. The Continental Op’s gang-war clean-up; a proto-noir masterpiece of institutional rot and ruthless tactics. You can listen to our pilot episode for our Continental Op SERIES right here on the Pulp Preservation Project podcast. And the number one story HAS TO BE Sam Spade’s debut, “The Maltese Falcon” (Part 1) — Dashiell Hammett, September 1929. This serial is TRULY "the stuff that dreams are made of." It is the story that crystalized hard-boiled detection and became one of crime fiction’s canonical novels, not to mention an iconic movie.  Hammett's style continues to influence contemporary crime novelists. Writers like James Ellroy and Sara Paretsky are heirs to the hardboiled tradition that Hammett pioneered.

FLESH v. METAL Hunted by machine-men and betrayed by science, one father and son hold the only key to humanity’s survival. Can flesh and blood outwit Atrakin, the immortal metal tyrant who would rule the universe?

Super Science Stories was a pulp science fiction magazine first published in March 1940 by Popular Publications, a company well-known for its wide range of pulp titles. The magazine was created at the request of Doubleday’s paperback line, which needed a steady flow of science fiction content for reprints in their Better Little Books series. Edited by the legendary Donald A. Wollheim in its early years, the magazine offered space opera, adventure tales, and speculative stories from both established writers and new voices in the genre. Though not as prestigious as Astounding Science Fiction, it gained a loyal readership thanks to its fast-paced storytelling and willingness to feature up-and-coming authors. The magazine’s initial run lasted from 1940 until 1943, when wartime paper shortages forced Popular Publications to suspend it. It was revived in 1949 and ran under the same publisher until 1951, with a brief final return from 1959 to 1960 under Feature Publications. Across these periods, Super Science Stories played an important role in shaping the pulp science fiction landscape, offering early publication opportunities to writers such as Philip K. Dick, Frederik Pohl, and Isaac Asimov. Although never considered a top-tier title, its mix of bold cover art and sensational, action-oriented stories captured the adventurous spirit of mid-20th-century science fiction. Here’s a Top 5 list of standout Super Science Stories tales: 1. “Robots Return” — Isaac Asimov (March 1940) Asimov’s story, co-written with Frederik Pohl (under the pen name James MacCreigh), was among the earliest Super Science Stories pieces to gain recognition. It’s important because it foreshadowed themes of machine intelligence and destiny that would become central to Asimov’s career. 2. “Let the Ants Try” — Frederik Pohl (Winter 1949) A short but striking tale of time travel and unintended consequences, this story remains one of Pohl’s best-remembered pulp contributions. It showed his sharp satirical edge, which would later define his career as both writer and editor. 3. “Adam Link’s Vengeance” — Eando Binder (Summer 1940) Part of the popular “Adam Link” robot series, this installment carried on the saga of a sympathetic artificial being. The series influenced later robot narratives (including Asimov’s) and was one of the magazine’s marquee attractions. 4. “Dark Mission” — Henry Kuttner (November 1940) Kuttner was a prolific pulp talent, and this story combined space adventure with his knack for darker, psychological twists. It stood out for elevating pulp action into something moodier and more nuanced. 5. “Flight of the Starling” — A. E. van Vogt (May 1941) One of van Vogt’s early appearances, this tale of interstellar conflict and vast cosmic stakes showcased the sprawling imagination that would make him one of the Golden Age’s most distinctive voices.

DEATH ALL AROUND As the death toll rises Edward V. King and Pat Lee race to solve the murders by levitation. Can they release New York from the grip of fear?

FRIGHT HITS A NEW HEIGHT! People rise screaming into the night sky until their bodies are engulfed in horrendous fiery explosions, as a masked mastermind terrifies a city with unimaginable murders. Only Edward V. King stands between the killers and their next victim—but even he may be too late.

Strange Detective Mysteries was a pulp magazine published by Popular Publications beginning in 1938, during a period when publishers were experimenting with blending established genres. As its title suggests, the magazine specialized in combining hardboiled detective stories with elements of the bizarre, the supernatural, and the horrific. This positioned it alongside the “weird menace” and horror pulps, but with a stronger emphasis on mystery and investigation. Readers could expect tales of private eyes and policemen pitted not only against criminals, but also against eerie conspiracies, occult trappings, and seemingly impossible crimes. This hybrid style made the magazine distinctive at a time when crime and horror pulps were booming. Like many Popular Publications titles, Strange Detective Mysteries relied heavily on eye-catching, lurid covers to grab attention at the newsstand. Often painted by leading pulp artists, the covers depicted terrified women, grotesque villains, and dramatic confrontations meant to suggest both horror and action. Inside, stories leaned on atmosphere as much as action, with plots often involving cults, sinister scientists, or unearthly threats that pushed detective heroes to their limits. Though the magazine did not run as long as more conventional detective pulps, it carved out a niche in pulp history as one of the more unusual experiments in cross-genre storytelling. Today, it is remembered fondly by collectors and pulp historians as a title that embodied the pulps’ willingness to blur lines and chase thrills wherever they could be found.

PURPLE GODS! CRISS-CROSS DEATH! When two Secret Service agents are hurled onto the uncharted island of Perambi, they find more than fever jungles and volcanic fire—they crash headlong into a nightmare of purple-painted gods, savage rites of sacrifice, and the whispering menace of the Cave of the Criss-Cross Knives! Against a backdrop of blood-soaked altars, vanished natives, and a traitor who rules like a mad deity, they must fight not only for their mission, but for their very sanity, as every shadow promises treachery, and every kiss may be the prelude to a knife thrust fromSPICY ADVENTURE STORIESApril 1935 The Spicy line of pulp magazines was launched in the mid-1930s by Harry Donenfeld’s Culture Publications, a company that specialized in pushing the boundaries of what pulps could get away with under the law. These titles included Spicy Detective Stories, Spicy Mystery Stories, Spicy Adventure Stories, and Spicy Western Stories. On the surface, they were part of the usual pulp genres—crime, horror, adventure, and westerns—but what set them apart was their heavy emphasis on risqué content. The stories featured scantily clad women, salacious situations, and often a blend of sex and violence that shocked critics but attracted a steady audience. Covers were particularly notorious, usually depicting women in peril with lurid, suggestive artwork designed to make the magazines leap off the newsstand. The Spicy magazines gained notoriety for skating just under the line of obscenity laws, becoming some of the most controversial pulps of their time. While they weren’t pornographic by modern standards, their mix of titillation and pulp thrills was provocative enough to draw the ire of moral reformers and eventually the U.S. Post Office, which cracked down on their distribution. By the early 1940s, the titles were forced to tone down their content, dropping “Spicy” from their names and shifting toward tamer fare. Despite their decline, the Spicy line left an enduring mark on pulp history, remembered as both a daring publishing experiment and a key moment in the ongoing tug-of-war between popular entertainment and censorship in America.

The Spicy line of pulp magazines was launched in the mid-1930s by Harry Donenfeld’s Culture Publications, a company that specialized in pushing the boundaries of what pulps could get away with under the law. These titles included Spicy Detective Stories, Spicy Mystery Stories, Spicy Adventure Stories, and Spicy Western Stories. On the surface, they were part of the usual pulp genres—crime, horror, adventure, and westerns—but what set them apart was their heavy emphasis on risqué content. The stories featured scantily clad women, salacious situations, and often a blend of sex and violence that shocked critics but attracted a steady audience. Covers were particularly notorious, usually depicting women in peril with lurid, suggestive artwork designed to make the magazines leap off the newsstand. The Spicy magazines gained notoriety for skating just under the line of obscenity laws, becoming some of the most controversial pulps of their time. While they weren’t pornographic by modern standards, their mix of titillation and pulp thrills was provocative enough to draw the ire of moral reformers and eventually the U.S. Post Office, which cracked down on their distribution. By the early 1940s, the titles were forced to tone down their content, dropping “Spicy” from their names and shifting toward tamer fare. Despite their decline, the Spicy line left an enduring mark on pulp history, remembered as both a daring publishing experiment and a key moment in the ongoing tug-of-war between popular entertainment and censorship in America.

THREE MEN—ONE BIG PROBLEM Tawny March thought juggling a Marine and a Soldier was trouble enough—until a wrong number brought a Navy man with eyes like storm-tossed seas! Now three uniforms, two proposals, and one sizzling secret threaten to set her heart—and her future—on fire! fromAll-Story LoveSeptember 1934 All-Story Love was a pulp romance magazine published by the Munsey Company, one of the pioneering giants of the pulp era. It debuted in 1921, during the boom years when publishers were experimenting with specialized pulps to target particular audiences. While Munsey had already made its mark with The Argosy and All-Story Weekly, All-Story Love was part of its expansion into genre-specific markets, alongside titles devoted to westerns, adventures, and detective tales. The magazine focused squarely on romance stories, offering melodramatic plots filled with passion, heartbreak, betrayal, and redemption. Unlike the broader pulps that mixed genres, All-Story Love catered specifically to women readers, which was still a relatively novel idea in pulp publishing at the time. The magazine ran through the 1930s, with changing editorial approaches as tastes evolved. In its early years, All-Story Love presented dramatic, almost gothic romance tales, but later it shifted toward lighter “love-conquers-all” narratives that mirrored popular Hollywood romances. Cover art played a crucial role in its appeal, often featuring glamorous young women in moments of emotional intensity, designed to catch the eye on crowded newsstands. Although it never achieved the enduring fame of adventure-oriented pulps, All-Story Love is significant for helping establish romance as a viable pulp genre. It paved the way for the later explosion of love pulps and, eventually, the mass-market paperback romance novels that would dominate mid-20th century popular fiction.