I don't think this cover is as good as many others by Herbert Morton Stoops, but this is an important issue of BLUE BOOK anyway. It's the last one that was a true pulp. Trimmed, maybe, but still a pulp. The next issue it went to the larger quarto size. As usual with BLUE BOOK, H. Bedford-Jones is well-represented in the Table of Contents with three stories, one under his own name and one each as by Gordon Keyne and Michael Gallister. Also contributing to this issue are Richard Wormser, Georges Surdez, Lemuel de Bra, Robert R. Mill, Raymond S. Spears, Jacland Marmur, and little-known writers John Upton Terrell, George Agnew Chamberlain, Charles Wellington Furlong, and George Weston. With Bedford-Jones anchoring their stable, BLUE BOOK always had good authors in its pages.
7 comments:
No matter what type of Genre fiction you like, BLUE BOOK always has something for you, and the consistently high quality of fiction in every issue is - for my money - unmatched by any other fiction magazine. I'm actively collecting BLUE BOOK now, though I don't intend to go farther back than the early 1930's.
There are plenty of good authors in the earlier issues, but I think BLUE BOOK was at its peak in the Thirties and Forties, so your plan is sound.
Weston (1880-1965? 1968?) was a popular short story writer for the leading magazines (Harper's, Saturday Evening Post, Collier's, etc.) during the first half of the twentieth centry. He published at least seven novels, the last (and best-known) of which was HIS FIRST MILLION WOMEN (1934; COMET "Z" in the UK), an early example of the last-fertile-man-in-the-world novel later used by many following science fiction writers.
Thanks, Jerry. I hadn't heard of him, but I see that some of his books are available as e-books. Not, evidently, HIS FIRST MILLION WOMEN. But there's an affordable paperback of it, so I'll probably give it a try.
While the earlier commenter mentions the variety of genres, they forgot to mention another reason to collect Blue Book. The sheer variety and quality of illustrations in the magazine! In this issue, there are 7 illustrators with distinct styles open: Arthur Jameson, Austin Briggs, Charles Chickering, Frederic Anderson, Grattan Condon, Hamilton Greene, L. R. Gustavson, Merritt Berger, Monte Crews.
BLUE BOOK had more and generally better interior illustrations than any other pulp I can think of. I'm especially fond of Austin Briggs' work, but they're all good. It was just a really class production all the way around.
I have collected Blue Book for years and I love the stories in them. Excellent pulp.
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