Professional Documents
Culture Documents
A 11
A 11
Contents
1 Publishing history and contents
2 Bibliographic details
3 Notes
4 Footnotes
5 References
6 External links
Publishing history and contents
In addition to original material, Ghost Stories ran many reprints, including well-
known Victorian ghost stories such as "The Signalman" by Charles Dickens, and "The
Open Door" by Mrs. Oliphant. Agatha Christie's "The Last Seance" appeared in the
November 1926 issue, with the title "The Woman Who Stole a Ghost", and six stories
by H.G. Wells were reprinted, including ghost stories such as "The Red Room" and
stories with less obvious appeal to the readership of Ghost Stories, such as
"Pollock and the Porroh Man". Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Captain of the Polestar"
appeared in the April 1931 issue, and he also contributed a non-fiction piece,
"Houdini's Last Escape", which appeared in March 1930.[3]
Macfadden set up an arrangement with Walter Hutchinson, a U.K. publisher, to
exchange suitable material with The Sovereign Magazine and Mystery-Story Magazine,
two of Hutchinson's U.K. genre pulps, and many stories appeared on both sides of
the Atlantic as a result.[2]
The magazine was initially fairly successful, but sales soon began to fall. In
March 1930 Harold Hersey bought the magazine from Macfadden and took over as
editor, but he was unable to revive the magazine's fortunes.[3][4] In 1931 the
schedule slipped to bimonthly, and three issues later the magazine ceased
publication, probably because readers grew bored with the limited scope and
predictable content. The final issue is dated December 1931/January 1932.[2]
Bibliographic details
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
1926 1/1 1/2 1/3 1/4 1/5 1/6
1927 2/1 2/2 2/3 2/4 2/5 2/6 3/1 3/2 3/3 3/4 3/5 3/6
1928 4/1 4/2 4/3 4/4 4/5 4/6 5/1 5/2 5/3 5/4 5/5 5/6
1929 6/1 6/2 6/3 6/4 6/5 6/6 7/1 7/2 7/3 7/4 7/5 7/6
1930 8/1 8/2 8/3 8/4 8/5 8/6 9/1 9/2 9/3 9/4 9/5 9/6
1931 10/1 10/2 10/3 10/4 10/5 10/6 11/1 11/2 11/3 11/4
1932 11/4
Issues of Ghost Stories, showing volume/issue number. The sequence of
editors is not known with enough certainty to be indicated in the table. Note that
the last issue (volume 11 number 4) was dated December 1931/January 1932
and spans two rows in the table.[3]
Ghost Stories was published by Bernarr Macfadden, under the imprint Constructive
Publishing Co., of Dunellin, New Jersey, until the March 1930 issue, after which it
was taken over by Good Story Magazine Co. of New York, which was run by Harold
Hersey, who had earlier edited The Thrill Book. The editorial director of
Constructive Publishing during MacFadden's ownership was Fulton Oursler; his
assistants, Harry A. Keller, W. Adolphe Roberts, George Bond, Daniel Wheeler, and
Arthur B. Howland, each (in that order) spent close to a year editing, though the
dates of transition between them are not known. When Hersey took over, his
assistant was Stuart Palmer.[2]
Two pages (26-27) of magazine (October 1930, vol. 9, no. 4) featuring "The Story of
Dead"
The magazine began as a slick, in bedsheet format and switched to pulp layout with
the July 1928 issue; it remained as a pulp until the end of its run with the
exception of eight issues in large pulp format from April to December 1929. There
are 64 issues, with six issues per volume, except for the last volume which
included only four issues.[2] The price was 25 cents throughout; it had 128 pages
when pulp-sized, and 96 pages when a bedsheet and when it was a large pulp.[3]
No anthologies have selected their contents solely from Ghost Stories, but two
magazines have done so: True Twilight Tales and Prize Ghost Stories, both published
by League Publications, a subsidiary of the company that owned the rights to the
original stories, MacFadden-Bartell. Prize Ghost Stories published one issue, dated
1963, and True Twilight Tales published two, dated Fall 1963 and Spring 1964. Both
magazines were in large pulp format, with 96 pages, priced at 50 cents. The first
issue of True Twilight Tales was edited by Helen Gardiner, who probably also was
the editor of Prize Ghost Stories; the second issue of True Twilight Tales was
edited by John M. Williams. There may have been other issues of both titles, as
neither are numbered.[5][6]
Notes
This was not Jacobi's first sale. "Mive", which he had sold to Weird Tales, did
not appear in print until the following month.[3]
Footnotes
Weinberg (1985), pp. 626�628.
Ashley (1997), p. 406.
Ashley (1985a), pp. 315�317.
Hersey (1937), p. 190.
Ashley (1985b), pp. 482�483.
Ashley (1985c), pp. 678�679.
References
Ashley, Mike (1985a). "Ghost Stories". In Tymn, Marshall B.; Ashley, Mike (eds.).
Science Fiction, Fantasy and Weird Fiction Magazines. Westport, Connecticut:
Greenwood Press. pp. 315�317. ISBN 0-313-21221-X.
Ashley, Mike (1985b). "Prize Ghost Stories". In Tymn, Marshall B.; Ashley, Mike
(eds.). Science Fiction, Fantasy and Weird Fiction Magazines. Westport,
Connecticut: Greenwood Press. pp. 482�483. ISBN 0-313-21221-X.
Ashley, Mike (1985c). "True Twilight Tales". In Tymn, Marshall B.; Ashley, Mike
(eds.). Science Fiction, Fantasy and Weird Fiction Magazines. Westport,
Connecticut: Greenwood Press. pp. 678�679. ISBN 0-313-21221-X.
Ashley, Mike (1997). "Ghost Stories". In Clute, John; Grant, John (eds.). The
Encyclopedia of Fantasy. New York: St. Martin's Press, Inc. p. 406. ISBN 0-312-
15897-1.
Hersey, Harold Brainerd (1937). Pulpwood Editor. New York: Frederick A. Stokes
Company. OCLC 2770489.
Locke, John, ed. (2010). Ghost Stories: The Magazine and Its Makers: Volume 1.
Elkhorn, CA: Off-Trail Publications. ISBN 978-1-935031-09-3. Volume 2. ISBN 1-
935031-13-9.
Weinberg, Robert (1985). "Strange Tales of Mystery and Terror". In Tymn, Marshall
B.; Ashley, Mike (eds.). Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Weird Fiction Magazines.
Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. pp. 626�628. ISBN 0-313-21221-X.
External links
Media related to Ghost Stories (magazine) at Wikimedia Commons
Ghost Stories 8 issues archive.org/details/GhostStories
vte
Science fiction and fantasy pulp magazines
Magazines
A. Merritt's Fantasy MagazineAmazing StoriesAmazing Stories QuarterlyAstonishing
StoriesAstounding StoriesCaptain FutureCometCosmic StoriesDoctor DeathDynamic
Science FictionDynamic Science StoriesFamous Fantastic MysteriesFantastic
AdventuresFantastic NovelsFantastic Story QuarterlyFantasyFlash Gordon Strange
Adventure MagazineFuture Science FictionGhost StoriesMarvel Science StoriesMiracle
Science and Fantasy StoriesNew WorldsOther WorldsOut of This World AdventuresPlanet
StoriesScience FictionScience-Fiction PlusScience Fiction QuarterlyScientific
Detective MonthlySpace StoriesStartling StoriesStirring Science StoriesStrange
StoriesStrange TalesSuper Science StoriesTales of Magic and MysteryTales of
Wonder10 Story FantasyThe Thrill BookTops in Science FictionTwo Complete Science-
Adventure BooksUncanny StoriesUncanny Tales (Canadian)UnknownVargo Statten Science
Fiction MagazineWeird TalesThe Witch's TalesWonder StoriesWonder Story Annual
Related
History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950George Kelley Paperback
and Pulp Fiction Collection
Categories: Fantasy fiction magazinesPulp magazinesMagazines established in
1926Magazines disestablished in 1932Magazines published in New JerseyMagazines
published in New York (state)Horror fiction magazinesDefunct magazines of the
United StatesGhost stories
Navigation menu
Not logged inTalkContributionsCreate accountLog inArticleTalkReadEditView
historySearch
Search Wikipedia
Main page
Contents
Featured content
Current events
Random article
Donate to Wikipedia
Wikipedia store
Interaction
Help
About Wikipedia
Community portal
Recent changes
Contact page
Tools
What links here
Related changes
Upload file
Special pages
Permanent link
Page information
Wikidata item
Cite this page
In other projects
Wikimedia Commons
Print/export
Download as PDF
Printable version
Languages
?????
Espa�ol
Edit links
This page was last edited on 3 February 2020, at 16:13 (UTC).
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License;
additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and
Privacy Policy. Wikipedia� is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation,
Inc., a non-profit organization.