The All-Story Magazine

The October 1912 issue ofAll-Story, containing the firstTarzan story. The artist isClinton Pettee.[1]
Editor	Robert H. Davis
Categories	Pulp magazine
Publisher	Frank Munsey
First issue	January 1905
Final issue	July 17, 1920
Country	USA

The All-Story Magazine was apulp magazine founded in 1905 and published byFrank Munsey. The editor wasRobert H. Davis; Thomas Newell Metcalf also worked as a managing editor^{[note 1]} for the magazine. It was published monthly until March 1914, and then switched to a weekly schedule. Munsey merged it withTheCavalier, another of his pulp magazines, in May 1914, and the title changed toAll-Story Cavalier Weekly for a year. In 1920 it was merged with Munsey'sArgosy; the combined magazine was retitledArgosy All-Story Weekly.

Many well-known writers appeared inAll-Story, including the mystery writerMary Roberts Rinehart and the Western writerMax Brand. The most famous contributor to the magazine wasEdgar Rice Burroughs, whose first sale,Under the Moons of Mars, appeared inAll-Story in 1912. This was the start of hisBarsoom science fiction seriesset on Mars; the next three novels in the series also appeared inAll-Story. In 1912All-Story printed Burroughs'sTarzan of the Apes, andmore stories of Tarzan followed, along with two installments of another of Burroughs's series, aboutPellucidar, aland inside the Earth. The first appearance ofZorro, the vigilante, was inAll-Story in 1919, inJohnston McCulley's novelThe Curse of Capistrano. Many other science fiction and fantasy stories appeared over the life of the magazine. Starting in 1939 some of the stories fromAll-Story were included inFamous Fantastic Mysteries andFantastic Novels, both of which were created as vehicles for reprints from the Munsey magazines.

In 1882,Frank Munsey launchedThe Golden Argosy, a children's weekly magazine. The title changed to justThe Argosy in 1888, and in 1896 Munsey switched to using coarse pulp paper, and printing only fiction, thus launching the firstpulp magazine. It was immediately successful. Other publishers brought out competing magazines, such asStreet & Smith'sThe Popular Magazine in 1903, and Story-Press'sThe Monthly Story Magazine in 1905. As the competition grew, Munsey decided to add another pulp title.^[3]

Munsey launchedThe All-Story Magazine in January 1905 on a monthly schedule withRobert H. Davis as the editor, and Davis hired Thomas Newell Metcalf to work for him as managing editor.^{[4][5][note 1]} Munsey had hired Davis early in 1904 to work on theNew York Sunday News, but sold it in April of that year, and Davis had been fiction editor ofMunsey's Magazine since then.^[4][6]

In March 1914All-Story's schedule switched to weekly, and in May of that year it was combined with another Munsey pulp,The Cavalier, under the titleAll-Story Cavalier Weekly.^[5] Davis and Metcalf had each dealt with someAll-Story contributors up to that point, but thereafter Davis took over working with the writers who had been Metcalf's responsibility.^[7][8] The following year the "Cavalier" was dropped, and it continued asAll-Story Weekly again until 1920, when it was merged intoThe Argosy.^[5] The combined magazine was retitledArgosy All-Story Weekly, and retained that name until 1929.^[3]

The first issue included the first instalments of five novels, including W. Bert Foster'sWhen Time Slipped a Cog, about a man who discovers a year of his life has passed that he cannot remember. Two of the short stories were science fiction as well:Howard R. Garis's "The Ghost at Box 13", andMargaret Prescott Montague's "The Great Sleep Tanks".^[4] The May issue reprintedGarrett P. Serviss's short novelThe Moon Metal (originally published in book form in 1900), about a new fiscal standard that replaced gold with a metal from the moon.^[9][8] Serviss also appeared in 1909 withA Columbus of Space, serialized in the January to June issues, which science fiction historianSam Moskowitz commented "caused some to class Serviss as the equal of Jules Verne".^[10]

Mary Roberts Rinehart's first story, "A Gasoline Road Agent", appeared in the April 1905 issue. Davis encouraged her efforts, and her first novel,The Circular Staircase, was serialized inAll-Story from November 1906 to March 1907. In book form the novel later became the first major success of her career.^[8][11]Max Brand, one of the most prolific of all pulp writers, sold his first Western novel,The Untamed, toAll-Story; it was serialized starting in the December 1918 issue.^[12]Ray Cummings, another prolific pulp author, began his career with "The Girl in the Golden Atom" in the March 15, 1919, issue ofAll-Story; it was one of the most popular stories he ever wrote.^[3] OtherAll-Story writers includedRex Stout, later a well-known mystery writer; Western writerRaymond S. Spears;^[13] science fiction writerMurray Leinster;^[3] horror and fantasy writersTod Robbins andPerley Poore Sheehan,^[13] andW. Adolphe Roberts, a Jamaican writer who later became a leader of Jamaica's independence movement.^[14]All-Story also published poetry, including work byDjuna Barnes, later known as an important figure in modernist and lesbian literature.^[15][16][17]Eldred Kurtz Means's "Tickfall" stories, about black Americans in Louisiana, began inCavalier and moved toAll-Story when the two magazines merged.^[18]Johnston McCulley'sZorro series began with the serialization ofThe Curse of Capistrano in August and September 1919, and continued inArgosy after the magazines merged in 1920.^[19]Edwin Baird, later the founding editor ofWeird Tales, made his first sale toAll-Story in 1906, and contributed several more over the life of the magazine.^[20][21]

The first issue's cover printed the words "Something New" in a script font on a red background. A picture of two cowboys appeared on the next issue. The third issue took over the cover for a declaration that the magazine had reached a circulation of 200,000, but thereafter artwork was used on every cover. Artists includedValentine Sandberg andF. X. Chamberlain. The cover illustrations did not at first have any relationship to the stories in the magazine.^[4]

John Clute, discussing the American pulp magazines in the first two decades of the twentieth century, has describedAll-Story and its companion,Argosy, as "the most important pulps of their era."^[22]

The most important author discovered byAll-Story wasEdgar Rice Burroughs.^[9] Burroughs was thirty-five years old in the summer of 1911, and unsuccessful in business. He began writing a novel in July of that year, "very surreptitiously" as he later recalled: "I was very much ashamed of my new vocation ... It seemed a foolish thing for a full grown man to be doing". By August he had completed enough of the story to send it toAll-Story under the title "Dejah Thoris, Martian Princess", adding in his covering letter that the completed story would be three times the length of the 43,000 words he was submitting. Metcalf replied with guarded enthusiasm, asking for some cuts, and a total length of no more than 70,000 words. Metcalf bought the rewritten story in November for $400 (equivalent to $13,000 in 2024); given the manuscript had taken four months of work, Burroughs was unimpressed at the pay rate.^[24] The story was serialized inAll-Story from February to July 1912, titledUnder the Moons of Mars. This was the first of Burroughs'sBarsoom stories ("Barsoom" being the name of the planet Mars in the series), an early and influentialplanetary romance.^[25]Darkness and Dawn, byGeorge Allan England, had been serialized in another Munsey magazine,The Cavalier, starting in January that year, and science fiction historian Sam Moskowitz regards the appearance of these two stories as signalling the start of an era of popular science fiction love stories.^[26] Burroughs had intended the story to be printed under the pseudonym "Normal Bean", to indicate he was an ordinary person despite the fantastic nature of the story.^[27] The typesetter assumed it was an error and the story appeared as by "Norman Bean", leading Burroughs to give up the pseudonym and publish his subsequent work under his real name.^{[28][note 2]}

Burroughs's next submission to Metcalf was rejected,^[30] but in March 1912 Burroughs sent Metcalf a description of the novel he was working on, titledTarzan of the Apes; Metcalf was enthusiastic about the idea and promptly bought the manuscript when Burroughs submitted it in June.^[31] It appeared in the October 1912 issue ofAll-Story.^[9] The next three Barsoom novels appeared inAll-Story over the next four years:The Gods of Mars was serialized from January to May 1913;^[32]The Warlord of Mars ran from December 1913 to March 1914, andThuvia, Maid of Mars appeared in 1916.^[33] The second Tarzan book,The Return of Tarzan, appeared inNew Story Magazine, but the series returned toAll-Story for three of the later novels:The Beasts of Tarzan,The Son of Tarzan, andTarzan and the Jewels of Opar, and for some of the subsequent short stories in the series.^[34] Burroughs'sPellucidar series, about adventures inside ahollow Earth, also began inAll-Story, withAt the Earth's Core andPellucidar.^[25] The initial rate of less than a cent per word that Burroughs received for his first sale began to increase: Metcalf agreed to a rate of two and a half cents per word (equivalent to $0.78 in 2024), for everything he bought from Burroughs in 1914.^[35]

By the timeAll-Story merged withArgosy in the summer of 1920, almost two dozen stories and serialized novels by Burroughs had appeared in the magazine.^[34] Burroughs's popularity led to a demand for similar stories, and to imitations.^[36] Science fiction historianMike Ashley suggests that this was the reason for the increasing number of science fiction stories that began to appear, from writers such asAustin Hall,Homer Eon Flint, and Junius B. Smith. Hall's "Almost Immortal" appeared in 1916, along with short science fiction tales by John U. Giesy, J. B. Smith, Charles B. Stilson, andVictor Rousseau.^[36][37] The following yearAll-Story publishedAbraham Merritt's first story, "Through the Dragon Glass". Merritt was one of the most popular pulp writers, and in 1918 two more of his stories appeared:The People of the Pit, and "The Moon Pool".^[38] "The Conquest of the Moon Pool", a sequel to the latter story, followed in 1919, and both were well received.^[36] WhenHugo Gernsback launchedAmazing Stories, the first science fiction magazine, in 1926, he soon discovered that the technically oriented science fiction he preferred did not sell as well as more fantastic stories, and he responded by reprinting "The Moon Pool" in the May 1927 issue.^[39]

In 2006, a copy of the October 1912 issue ofAll-Story, featuring the first appearance of the characterTarzan in any medium, sold for $59,750 (equivalent to $93,000 in 2024) in an auction held byHeritage Auctions ofDallas.^[40]

The first issue, dated January 1905, and a later issue, from the period when the covers did not relate to the stories in the magazine

The magazine's title was originallyThe All-Story Magazine. This was shortened toThe All-Story in June 1911, and then changed toAll-Story Weekly when it switched from monthly to weekly publication with the March 7, 1914, issue. From May 16, 1914, to May 8, 1915, it was titledAll-Story Cavalier Weekly as a result of the merger withTheCavalier, and for the rest of its run, until the July 17, 1920, issue, it wasAll-Story Weekly again.^[5][41]

In 1929 Munsey's reorganized two of their magazines:Munsey's Magazine became part of a new love story magazine titledAll-Story, andArgosy All-Story Weekly became simplyArgosy.^[42][43] The newAll-Story was soon retitledAll-Story Love Stories and continued publication until 1955.^[42]

The long history of the Munsey magazines meant that by the 1930s there were many stories readers had heard of but could no longer obtain. In response to reader requests, Munsey's launchedFamous Fantastic Mysteries in 1939 to reprint old stories from bothArgosy andAll-Story Weekly. The following year Munsey's launchedFantastic Novels, another reprint magazine, to make longer stories available without needing to serialize them inFamous Fantastic Mysteries.Fantastic Novels only lasted five issues before being discontinued in 1941, butFamous Fantastic Mysteries lasted for 81 issues, ceasing publication with the June 1953 issue.^[44][45]Popular Publications, which had acquiredFamous Fantastic Mysteries from Munsey's in 1942, brought backFantastic Novels for another 20 issues between 1948 and 1951.^[44][45]

In 1970 Sam Moskowitz edited a collection of stories from the Munsey magazines titledUnder the Moons of Mars: A History and Anthology of "The Scientific Romance" in the Munsey Magazines, 1912–1920. Seven of the nine stories included had originally appeared inAll-Story.^[3][46]

• Ashley, Michael (1976) [1974]. "Introduction: An Amazing Experiment". In Ashley, Michael (ed.).The History of the Science Fiction Magazine: Volume 1: 1926–1935. Westport, Connecticut:Henry Regnery Company. pp. 11–51.ISBN 0-8092-8003-5.
• Ashley, Mike (1985). "The Argosy and All-Story". InTymn, Marshall B.; Ashley, Mike (eds.).Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Weird Fiction Magazines. Westport, Connecticut:Greenwood Press. pp. 103–109.ISBN 0-313-21221-X.
• Clareson, Thomas D. (1985a). "Famous Fantastic Mysteries". In Tymn, Marshall B. & Ashley, Mike (eds.).Science Fiction, Fantasy and Weird Fiction Magazines. Westport, Connecticut:Greenwood Press. pp. 211–216.ISBN 0-313-21221-X.
• Clareson, Thomas D. (1985b). "Fantastic Novels". In Tymn, Marshall B. & Ashley, Mike (eds.).Science Fiction, Fantasy and Weird Fiction Magazines. Westport, Connecticut:Greenwood Press. pp. 241–244.ISBN 0-313-21221-X.
• Clute, John (1995).Science Fiction: The Illustrated Encyclopedia. New York:Dorling Kindersley Publishing, Inc.ISBN 0-7894-0185-1.
• Drew, Bernard A. (2015).Black Stereotypes in Popular Series Fiction, 1851–1955: Jim Crow Era Authors and Their Characters.McFarland, Incorporated, Publishers.ISBN 978-0-7864-7410-3 – viaGoogle Books.
• Earle, David M. (2009).Re-Covering Modernism: Pulps, Paperbacks and the Prejudice of Form. Farnham, Surrey:Ashgate Publishing.ISBN 978-0-7546-6154-2.
• Hulse, Ed (2013).The Blood 'N' Thunder Guide to Pulp Fiction. Morris Plains, New Jersey: Murania Press.ISBN 978-1491010938.
• Locke, John (2007).Pulpwood Days Volume 1: Editors You Want to Know. Elkhorn, California: Off-Trail Publications.ISBN 978-0-9786836-2-7.
• Miller, Meredith (2006).Historical Dictionary of Lesbian Literature. Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press, Inc.ISBN 0-8108-4941-0.
• Moskowitz, Sam (1968). "Introduction: A History of Science Fiction in the Popular Magazines, 1891–1911". In Moskowitz, Sam (ed.).Science Fiction by Gaslight: A History and Anthology of Science Fiction in the Popular Magazines, 1891–1911. Cleveland, Ohio: The World Publishing Company. pp. 15–50.OCLC 1330798369.
• Moskowitz, Sam (1970). "A History of the Scientific Romance in the Munsey Magazines, 1912-1920". In Moskowitz, Sam (ed.).Under the Moons of Mars: A History and Anthology of the Scientific Romance in the Munsey Magazines, 1912–1920. New York:Holt, Rinehart and Winston. pp. 289–433.ISBN 0-03-081858-3.
• Parsons, Deborah (2007). "Djuna Barnes: melancholic modernism". In Shiach, Morag (ed.).The Cambridge Companion to the Modernist Novel. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press. pp. 165–177.ISBN 978-0-521-85444-3.
• Porges, Irwin (1975).Edgar Rice Burroughs: The Man Who Created Tarzan. Provo, Utah:Brigham Young University Press.ISBN 0-8425-0079-0.
• Server, Lee (2002).Encyclopedia of Pulp Fiction Writers. New York: Checkmark Books.ISBN 0-8160-4578-X.
• Stableford, Brian (1997). "Merritt, Abraham". InClute, John; Grant, John (eds.).The Encyclopedia of Fantasy. New York:St. Martin's Press. pp. 103–109.ISBN 0-312-15897-1.
• Sumner, David E.;Rhoades, Shirrel (2006).Magazines: A Complete Guide to the Industry. New York:Peter Lang.ISBN 0-8204-7617-X.

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