Sunday, April 10, 2016

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Real Detective Tales and Mystery Stories, August/September 1925


That's a really wild-looking cover. Since I don't have a copy of this pulp, I don't know if it's meant to be metaphorical or not, but it's eye-catching, that's for sure. Inside are stories by veteran pulpsters Arthur J. Burks, Seabury Quinn, Otis Adelbert Kline, George Allan England, and others. I don't know anything about REAL DETECTIVE TALES AND MYSTERY STORIES, but the covers are an odd mix of Western, detective, and fantasy.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

There's one I've never seen before! Wild cover indeed!

Curt Phillips

Barry Traylor said...

Here is some info on this pulp. Pretty pricey one (if you could find a copy that is).

Real Detective Tales is one of the most elusive of the early detective pulps. It began in late 1922 under the name Detective Tales as a standard-sized pulp and published indifferent mystery and detective stories. In 1923 it acquired a companion magazine concentrating on the fantastic - the famous Weird Tales - and both magazines ran in parallel until mid-1924 when the publisher, Rural Publications, ran into difficulty.
At that point Detective Tales was sold to Real Detective Tales, Inc. and changed its name, first to Real Detective Tales and then to Real Detective Tales and Mystery Stories. By this point it had shifted to a large (quarto) format and had acquired an interesting stable of authors including Seabury Quinn, George Allan England and Miriam Allen de Ford. It ran for six years under this latter title (mainly on a monthly basis) but gradually during 1931 transformed into a non-fiction magazine called Real Detective, although fiction continued to appear into 1934 at least. It is not currently known exactly when the last issue containing any fiction appeared.


Todd Mason said...

Edwin Baird was an undistinguished editor everywhere, it seems. The Crime Fiction Indiex entry Barry quotes:
http://www.philsp.com/homeville/cfi/t617.htm#BOT

Todd Mason said...

A more direct link: http://www.philsp.com/homeville/cfi/clm52.htm#A617