Introduction

"Unknown", which ran for only 39 issues and less than five years and which ceased publication more than sixty years ago, still carries today a cachet and a reputation out of all proportion to its relatively short llife. Secondhand copies appear for sale only rarely and are quickly snapped up - a search of eBay today, for example, showed only six copies of UNK on offer against more than 100 Weird Tales. When I prepared my own collection (of the British edition) for scanning, I was reminded of why UNK has this special mystique. In its short life, it featured the most distinguished authors of the fantasy genre and many of the most memorable and best-loved stories in the field.

US Edition - UNK

The original US edition of UNK was set up by Street & Smith as a companion magazine to Astounding, the first issue appearing in March 1939. John W Campbell Jr. was the editor of the new magazine also, though he had an Assistant Editor (Catherine Tarrant) from October 1941 onwards. Many people feel that Campbell was at the peak of his editorial powers at this period. Though he is often regarded as the arch-priest of "hard" science fiction, the quality and distinctive character of UNK shows that his range was much wider than that.

UNK ran monthly from March 1939 to December 1940, then bi-monthly from February 1941 to October 1943 when it ceased, possibly a victim of war-time shortages. With the October 1941 issue, the name changed to "Unknown Worlds" and the format changed from pulp to a larger, bedsheet size. At the same time, the page count was reduced from 160 to 128 pages but, with the larger format, the wordage was probably not much different. For the last three issues (June - October 1943), both size and page count reverted to the original, though the title continued as "Unknown Worlds" until the end. Since I have none of the US magazines in my own collection, by the way, all of my information about their contents, format and page counts comes from SFFWF.

Up to June 1940, there were pictorial covers painted by Gladney, Scott, Cartier and Isip. Thereafter, a two-colour design was adopted showing a short trailer for a few of the leading stories against a small, stylised vignette, sometimes loosely connected with the story, sometimes not. No credits were given for these drawings.

British Reprint Edition - UNK1

Atlas Publishing and Distributing of London, UK publishers of Astounding, also produced a British edition of Unknown and the first issue appeared in September 1939, only a month after the first issue of its companion magazine. It was from the first a greatly cut-down version of the US original, having only 96 pages, then shrinking to 80 and finally to just 64. However, it managed over the course of its life to reprint by my count 192 of the 250 stories that appeared in the US magazine (plus a single story from Astounding, the only fiction item not from the US Unknown). It did this partly by adopting a very dense typeface and, if there were any illustrations in the originals, they were omitted in the UK editions. Thus, the same story sometimes took up nearly a third fewer pages in the UK version. Moreover, the UK edition continued long after the US magazine folded, though it became very irregular and only published 2-3 issues a year from 1941 onwards, until its run of 41 issues finished with the Winter 1949 number.

Until the end of 1940, each British edition was based on the single US issue of the same date. Then the UK publication schedule began to fall out of step with the US and the relationship became more complicated, with the British magazine drawing on sometimes one issue of the US parent, but more often several. After the US magazine ceased in October 1943, the British edition was drawing on its back catalogue of stories from earlier numbers in no particular order. I have tried to trace the correspondence as accurately as I can in the table below. The issues up to June 1940 carried the same pictorial covers as the US, but I am almost certain that they have been repainted for the British edition. The differences are subtle and I would need to examine the corresponding magazines side by side to be sure, but even the scans reveal variations in detail that seem too coarse to be accounted for by the printing process. I have attributed the British covers, therefore, as "after Cartier", "after Scott", &c.

Note the oddities of the numbering system used for the UK edition. The US magazine was numbered in volumes of 6, finishing with v7n3. At first, the British magzine had the same number as the US issue of corresponding date, starting with v2n1. This system began to break down as publication became increasingly irregular from 1941 onwards, some numbers were skipped and several issues in 1943-4 had no number at all. Then, as with Astounding and several other Atlas reprint editions, the UK isues were numbered in volumes of 12 as if the first issue had been v1n1, beginning with v3n4 and ending at v4n5. Many numbers were reused, therefore, so you need to know a magazine's date to identify it fully.

Australian & New Zealand edition - UNK2

It seems that there was also a reprint edition of Unknown published in Australia and New Zealand, as there was of Astounding. The only evidence I have of this is four scans of copies offered for sale on eBay, spanning Winter 1946 (v3n8) to Winter 1948 (v4n2). The scans are of such poor quality that I can only tell that they seem to have the same colour schemes as their UK equivalents and, so far as I can tell, the same text and vignettes describing the same stories. If the parallel with Astounding holds, it is likely that UNK2 was identical to UNK1 except for the cover price. The resolution of my scans is too poor, though, to determine the price or other small print. Can anyone say more about this edition?

From Unknown Worlds - UNKF and UNKF1

In 1948, Street & Smith brought out an anthology drawn from UNK entitled "From Unknown Worlds", containing fourteen stories and four poems from throughout the run of the original magazine. It is said that this was intended to test the market for a post-war re-introduction of the magazine. If that is the case, then the omens were unfavourable as the magazine itself never reappeared. The anthology was reprinted in Britain by Atlas in 1952, omitting just one story.

I am in some doubt over exactly what formats UNKF appeared in in the United States. The British edition definitely came out in two versions. There was a magazine-like softcover version. I have one of these and it is about the size and shape of a pulp magazine but rather better made, with heavy covers much like "Weird Tales" of the late 80s - early 90s. There was also a hardcover version, the dust jacket bearing the same Edd Cartier painting as the magzine cover, and these are regularly seen offered for sale - they are more common than the softcover version, in fact. In fact, there were strictly three versions as it seems that the soft-cover edition came out in two slight variations of the cover, though I have only seen the version shown here. In the US, there was definitely a large, bedsheet-sized magazine version but I am unable to find an example of a hardcover edition. Has anyone ever seen it?

US edition 1948

UK edition 1952

UK hardback edition

It is hard to be sure whether or not the covers were repainted for the British editions. The artwork must at least have been scaled down as the BRE was smaller than the original but, otherwise, the differences are imperceptible in the photographs I have seen.

Source of Images

Most of the BRE covers shown here are scanned from my own collection, with half a dozen provided by Alistair Durie to plug the gaps or improve on some of my own heavily marked copies. The US covers are all from copies offered for sale on eBay or other auction sites. March 1942 of the UK edition is missing - can anyone provide a scan?