Because of the vast number of magazines covered by this site (over 8000 at
last count) and the varying degrees of interest that different magazines command,
I have attempted to structure this part of the web site so that everyone (within
reason) can get rapid access to the information they are looking for.
The magazine data itself is subdivided into four hierarchical levels providing
more and more detail about fewer and fewer magazines. These levels are as follows:
- Top Level:This simply provides a single-page table of contents
to the next level down to facilitate rapid access to a given magazine.
- Magazine Lists: These pages contain a single line for each
magazine title, listing:
- The magazine title. Note that an attempt has been made to group together
all variant titles of a given magazine, with cross-references from each
title to the main entry.
- Details (as far as is known) of the range of issues for which the magazine
was published.
- Details of up to two magazine indexes that index some or all of the
contents of the magazine in question. The magazine indexes themselves
are listed on a separate page (hyperlinked
from the lists).
- Notes on the coverage of the indexes (if incomplete), with particular
emphasis on missing issues, together with a link to the illustrated checklist
for the magazine, where one is available.
- Magazine Data: Each of the magazines in the magazine lists
is hyperlinked to a page containing further details of the magazine. The level
of detail provided varies widely from magazine to magazine, partly due to
the limited information available and partly due to the sheer volume of information
that needs to be entered.
- Magazine Images: The magazine data pages (and issue checklists)
contain thumbnail cover scans of as many of the magazines as I have images
for. 95% of these are also hyper-linked to larger versions of the same cover
scans - typically limited to 400 pixels wide and about 60Kb in size, although
this varies widely from magazine to magazine.
Illustrated Checklists are provided
for about 2500 of the more popular magazines (such as pulp magazines and SF/Fantasy
magazines). Each contains a full checklist of all known issues of the magazine
in question, illustrated, where possible, with thumbnail cover scans of each
issue. As mentioned above, this are linked from both the Magazine List and Magazine
Data pages for the magazines in question. In addition, there are a series of
summary pages organised along "genre" lines, as discussed in more
detail here. For a small
number of magazines (such as Argosy and New
Worlds) these pages also contain detailed discussions of the magazines in
question. In due course I would like to add similar information for all magazines
but, at the current rate, this will take about another 200 years.
For general browsing, or to locate a particular
magazine by name, the best place to start is the top level index to All
Magazines as this includes all the magazines and the story papers
in the list. However, if you are interested in a particular genre/style of magazine,
there are also twelve additional subsets:
- Genre Magazines:These
are fundamentally the magazines I started out to list - all the key genre
magazines and other pulp magazines in which genre authors are likely to
have appeared. It covers about 2000 magazines.
- Pulp Magazines: This is an
attempt to list all pulp magazines (although the attribution is highly
debatable in some cases).
- Science Fiction, Fantasy and
Weird Fiction Magazines:This lists only those magazines that
contain a high proportion of SF, Fantasy, Horror, Ghost or Supernatural
stories.
- Crime, Mystery & Gangster Fiction
Magazines:This lists only those magazines that contain a high
proportion of Crime, Mystery, Detective, and/or Gangster stories.
- Adventure, War, and Espionage
Fiction Magazines:This lists only those magazines that contain
a high proportion of Adventure, War, Espionage and/or Aviation stories.
- Western and Frontier Fiction
Magazines:This lists only those magazines that contain a high
proportion of Western and Frontier stories and was primarily put together
for, and with the assistance of, the members of the WesternPulps
mailing list.
- Sports Fiction Magazines:This
lists only those magazines that contain a high proportion of Sports stories.
- Love Story Magazines:This
lists only those magazines that contain a high proportion of Love/Romance
stories.
- Men's Magazines:This
lists only those magazines aimed primarily at a male audience, including
the saucy/spicy titles from the 1920's & 1930's, the men's adventure
magazines from the 1940's & 1950's, and the more explicit magazines
of more recent decades.
- Little Magazines:This
lists only those magazines that are considered to be "little",
"literary" or "regional" magazines.
- Story Papers:This
set includes all the story papers and/or libraries in the list and is based
mainly on the research done by Steve Holland.
- Fiction Magazines:This
set includes all the magazines, excluding story papers, in the list (currently
about 4000) and is primarily of interest to the enthusiasts on the FictionMags
mailing list.
In a number of cases I've had to guess at the
contents of a magazine I did not recognise so there could well be some errors
in attribution - please feel free to let me know of any mistakes I have made.
Finally, there are three additional resources
that might be of interest:
- Image Gallery: This provides a set of
linked pages similar to the indexes above, but just displays the cover images
for the magazines. The primary use of this is to display additional cover
images for magazines that do not (yet) have illustrated checklists (as the
magazine data pages typically display a maximum of six covers), but may also
be of interest to those whose interest is mainly in the artwork on the magazines
rather than the contents. Note that, where a magazine does have an
illustrated checklist, this page will contain a link to the checklist rather
than duplicate all the cover scans (which run into the thousands for some
magazines).
- Current Magazines:
This contains all those magazines that are still being published (for any
budding, or actual, authors among you), together with website/e-mail links
(where known). As few magazines formally announce their termination, I have
used a rule of thumb here and elsewhere that a magazine that has not published
an issue for at least 3 years should be considered defunct. Some such magazines
do revive, and will be reinstated as soon as they do, but this is the exception
rather than the rule.
- Missing
Indexes: This summarises all the pulp/genre magazines that have, so
far, not been indexed (and for which indexes are not in progress), as well
as identifying the missing issues where an existing index is incomplete. Your
assistance in filling in these gaps would be most welcome!