-The Definition of the Genre-
American Hard-Boiled Crime Fiction, 1920s-1940s ~
A Brief Introduction
Early twentieth-century American crime fiction wasn’t entirely ‘hard-boiled’. America also produced its share of classic Golden Age whodunits, written in the 20s, for example, by S. S. Van Dine, and in the 30s by Ellery Queen and John Dickson Carr. But the distinctively American contribution of the 1920s and 1930s was the tough guy crime fiction of the hard-boiled tradition that started with the stories of ‘the Black Mask boys’. These 'noir thrillers' are stories that can be seen as very directly related to the socio-economic circumstances of the time. Raymond Chandler wrote that the 'smell of fear' generated by such stories was evidence of their serious response to the modern condition: ‘Their characters lived in a world gone wrong, a world in which, long before the atom bomb, civilization had created the machinery for its own destruction and was learning to use it with all the moronic delight of a gangster trying out his first machine-gun. The law was something to be manipulated for profit and power. The streets were dark with something more than night.’
This type of crime fiction, then, began to develop as a popular form in the aftermath of one devastating war and came to maturity in the two decades that terminate in a second world war. In its most characteristic narratives, some traumatic event irretrievably alters the conditions of life and creates for its characters an absolute experiential divide between their dependence on stable, predictable patterns and the recognition that life is, in truth, morally chaotic, subject to randomness and total dislocation. In the best-known parable of ordinary life disrupted, Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade (Maltese Flacon) tells the story of Flitcraft, who comes to realise life's arbitrariness and absurdity when he is nearly killed by a falling beam. The American thrillers of the period repeatedly represent the sort of transformation that leaves the protagonist feeling, as Flitcraft does, that 'someone had taken the lid off life and let him look at the works.’ The sense of disillusionment in the years between the wars was heightened by political and economic disasters for which people were wholly unprepared: there was the folly of Prohibition and its attendant gangsterism, as well as growing evidence of illicit connections between crime, business and politics in American cities. Crises afflicted both American and European economies, bringing the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression, which Keynes saw as the worst catastrophe of modern times. In the ‘hard-boiled’ and ‘noir’ fiction of this period, the anxious sense of fatality is usually attached to a pessimistic conviction that economic and socio-political circumstances will deprive people of control over their lives by destroying their hopes and by creating in them the weaknesses of character that turn them into transgressors or mark them out as victims.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF SCIENCE FICTION & PULP MAGAZINES
The first "pulp magazine" has not actually been identified per se, but it probably appeared in the 1880's. Some authorities claim that the first all fiction issue of The Argosy (Oct. 1896) is the first "pulp magazine," but there are hundreds of true pulp magazines that are not "all fiction". Why quibble? In April, 1894, The Argosy became a monthly magazine in the traditional 7 x 10 inch format, and it's a convenient place to start. There were some Horatio Alger stories in these early issues, and even a science fiction serial: A. Laurie's "A Month in the Moon", Feb.- Aug, 1897. Pulpdom's purpose is to explore and expose the pulp magazine phenomenom, so this is just the begining.
"The amount of real science in science-fiction ranges from moderate to none at all." said noted SF historian Ev. Bleiler in 1990. Generally speaking, there is not adequate definition of "Science Fiction". Perhaps take some science and mix in some imagination and tell a story = "sf". Some begin with Thomas More's UTOPIA (1516), or Sir Francis Bacon's NEW ATLANTIS (1628); and there are others. I like to begin with Mary Shelly's FRANKENSTEIN (1817) since it fits the definition of taking some hard science (medicine/human physiology), and telling an imaginative story, which she certainly did.
Jules Verne's "voyages extrodinaires", which began in 1851 with A DRAMA IN THE AIR, and soon included A JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH (1864) and FROM EARTH TO THE MOON and A TRIP ROUND IT (1865 & 1874) brought him fame, and today he's known as the "father of Science Fiction".
Edgar Allan Poe and Fitz-James O'Brien were writing what is now considered "sf" in mid-19th century American periodicals and there were some singular works in the 1880's. Rider Haggard began a series of "lost race" novels with KING SOLOMON'S MINES in 1885 and H. G. Wells pushed the envelope with his March, 1894 story that became THE TIME MACHINE. And of course his WAR OF THE WORLDS (1897) is a classic alien invasion of earth. H. G. Wells, says E. F. Bleiler, is "the true founder of modern science fiction."
Millionaire Percival Lowell's fascination with the close approach of Mars to Earth in 1894 and the decade of publicity that followed his findings probably inspired American science journalist Garrett P. Serviss to write sf such as: EDISON'S CONQUEST OF MARS (1898).
Frank Aubrey/Fenton Ash wrote a number of "scientific romances" beginning with THE DEVIL TREE OF EL DORADO (1896). and The Argosy, reprinted his QUEEN OF ATLANTIS as an 1899 "lost race" serial. Park Winthrop wrote of a people inside the earth with "THE LAND OF THE CENTRAL SUN," a 1902 serial in Argosy and William Wallace Cook created "robots" in his 1903 Argosy sf serial A ROUND TRIP TO THE YEAR 2000; OR A FLIGHT THROUGH TIME.
The appearance of dozens of novels from Edgar Rice Burroughs, beginning with UNDER THE MOONS OF MARS as a serial in a 1911 pulp magazine called The All-Story, flooded readers with superb science fiction adventures. Within a few years. there were several 'sf' authors: Garret Smith, George Allan England, Abe Merritt, H. Eon Flint, Murray Leinster, Ray Cummings and others. Many sf stories from the old pulps remain unreprinted, and we will reprint more of them!
A unique magazine titled Weird Tales began in 1923, but it contained more 'horror' and 'fantasy' than sf. In April 1926, a publisher of popular science, electronics & radio magazines, Hugo Gernsback, introduced Amazing Stories, which was to publish only "scientifiction" stories. It promptly started reprinting Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, and Edgar Rice Burroughs, but soon introduced new authors such as H. Hyatt Verrill. In Jan. 1930 another sf pulp began, Astounding, and soon a new editor named John W. Campbell was insisting on "hard science" as a basis for story acceptance. By the mid-1930's, there was almost a blur between "science fiction", "monster stories" and the "hero pulp" stories like Shadow and Doc Savage. Today, these all fall into the realm of what has become "traditional sf", but Campbell's' discovery of Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov are special milestones.
These "pulp magazines", originating with The Argosy in the 1890's, had grown and multiplied during the first 30 years of the 20th century, and by 1930 there were hundreds of titles, many "sf" oriented, many general adventure, western and air-war, some "spicy", some "love," and many "hero" or character centered. By 1938 radio and motion pictures were occupying much of the old pulp reading public, and pulp magazine publishers were worried about lagging sales at newsstands. Argosy would make a dramatic change from "pulp fiction" to "men's adventure" in 1943, a milestone in the history of pulp magazines.
There was a brief revival of interest in pulp magazines in the early 1940's but by 1947, pulp readers were turning to Ballantine and Ace "paperbacks", and by 1954 all the pulps were gone. In the late 1940's, digest sf magazines such as Analog, Fantasy and Science Fiction and Galaxy were monthly sources of "science fiction," as were specialty hardcover publishers such as Gnome Press and Avalon Books, who were reprinting stories from the pulps.
THE ULTIMATE PULP SUPERHERO INDEX
INTRODUCTION
In the nearly thirty two years since Robert Weinberg and Lohr McKinstry's "Hero Pulp Index" was published, pulp scholarship has exploded. An incredible amount of background information on the heroes of the pulps and their creators has come to light. The true identities behind the previously-impenetrable house names have been determined in many cases, overturning and supplanting past knowledge. Interest in the pulp heroes has remained strong, as witnesses by a succession of vital magazines devoted to the subject, including "Xenophile, Duende, Age of the Unicorn, Nemesis, Pulp Vault, Echoes" and many others. Clearly it was long past time to compile a new version of what was once the standard reference text for pulp collectors, dealers and historians.
"The Ultimate Pulp Superhero Index" more than doubles the number of characters of any previous reference work. The purpose of this compendium is to be as definitive as possible within the scope of what might be called the Heroic Era of the pulp magazine. Some may disagree with our parameters, citing correctly the great heroes of the pulps of the twenties, but the Heroic Era is the period from roughly l931, when Street & Smith published the first pulp magazine devoted to and named after the hero of its lead novel, "The Shadow," and l953, when the pulp magazine industry virtually collapsed after a decline that some say began in the Depression (which is paradoxically the most exciting period for hero pulps) but which really came about after the drastic paper shortages of World War Two, followed by severe competition from comic books, paperback books, and television. The characters who have been chosen for inclusion in this index are those who came about, or were directly inspired by the success of "The Shadow" in l93l. Even if they appeared only once.
Several criteria have been established for inclusion. These follow:
---Pulp Stuff----
http://www.classicnoir.com/films/films.html
http://members.aol.com/chandlerla/index.htm
http://www.cwru.edu/artsci/engl/marling/hardboiled/ (I highly recommend this site*)
MORE PULP INFO
*Disclaimer: At any time do I take credit for writing , owning, or in anyway,
have exclusivity over the content on this page, or on the pages to which are linked from
this page. These are links and info I have found in my travels across the net and thought those
whom read my style would find the following sites informative and helpful in their search for pulp. All
linked info, and the above are owned by their respective authors. The above info is supplied by me to show the
history on my favorite genre.
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