135-562: Elmore John Leonard Jr. (October 11, 1925 – August 20, 2013) was an American novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter. His earliest novels, published in the 1950s, were Westerns , but he went on to specialize in crime fiction and suspense thrillers , many of which have been adapted into motion pictures. Among his best-known works are Hombre , Swag , City Primeval , LaBrava , Glitz , Freaky Deaky , Get Shorty , Rum Punch , Out of Sight and Tishomingo Blues . Leonard's short story " Three-Ten to Yuma "
270-402: A circulation of only 40,000 to 50,000. The new editor was Rogers Terrill . Argosy ceased to use pulp paper from 1943, becoming a slick magazine. In early 1944 Harry Steeger , the owner of Popular, took over the editorship for five years, hiring Jerry Mason away from This Week in 1949 to replace himself as editor. Mason stayed for four years; when he left in mid-1953 Howard Lewis
405-474: A couple of years. Exceptions included some of Walter R. Brooks ' Mr. Ed stories. The late 1940s saw more science fiction again, with stories by Nelson Bond , A. Bertram Chandler , and Robert A. Heinlein , whose " Gentlemen, Be Seated! " appeared in the May 1948 issue, and in the 1950s Argosy published work by Ray Bradbury , Arthur C. Clarke , and Philip José Farmer . In 1977 one of Argosy 's special issues
540-400: A fairly prolific pulp author, visited Manhattan to meet with the editors of the various magazines he had been selling to, and find out more about what their requirements were for submissions. Stone had sold several stories to Bob Davis , the editor of All-Story Weekly , before its merger with The Argosy , but had never sold to Matthew White, who had been editor of The Argosy since before
675-595: A fiction-only magazine, but gave up on this within a year. Instead it became a men's magazine , carrying fiction and feature articles aimed at men. Circulation soared and by the early 1950s was well over one million. Early contributors included Horatio Alger , Oliver Optic , and G. A. Henty . During the pulp era, many famous writers appeared in Argosy , including O. Henry , James Branch Cabell , Albert Payson Terhune , Edgar Rice Burroughs , Erle Stanley Gardner , Zane Grey , Robert E. Howard , and Max Brand . Argosy
810-498: A friend get a job at a publisher in Augusta, and after a couple of years his friend moved to New York City to work for another publishing company. Munsey was becoming more familiar with the publishing industry during this time, and decided he wanted to launch a magazine of his own. He had some difficulty in getting anyone to agree to invest, but eventually persuaded a stockbroker he knew to put in $ 2,500 ($ 79,000 in 2023), of which $ 500
945-411: A magazine historian, argues that the low price, sustained through most of the 1920s, must have been a strong benefit to circulation, which is reported to have reached half a million when the combined magazine, now titled Argosy All-Story Weekly , debuted. Circulation stayed at about 400,000 during the following decade. The first issue of the new magazine added pages to allow it to carry continuations of
1080-657: A mailed magazine, and promptly notified dozens of publishers that they had to attend a hearing in Washington or lose their permits. Argosy 's citation from the Post Office listed stories considered to be obscene; the list included The G-String Murders , a serial by Rose Louise Hovick (better known as the burlesque performer Gypsy Rose Lee ) that began in May 1942, and "How Paris Apaches Terrorize Nazis in Girl Orgies" and "Sex Outrages by Jap Soldiers", articles in
1215-425: A masculine point of view. Bittner's comments in 1928 asked for "any good clean story with sound plot, rapid-fire action and strong masculine appeal", and gave a long list of genres all of which were acceptable—even romance so long as "the love element is not unduly stressed". In 1931 Moore outlined the stories to be excluded: "love or domestic tales, sex stories, stories with a predominant woman interest or told from
1350-699: A novella that began serialization in the August 1905 issue, and he sold a dozen more stories to the magazine over the next few years. An early story by Mary Roberts Rinehart , "The Misadventures of a Pearl Necklace", appeared in February the following year. The first pulp issue, in December 1896, included a science fiction story, "Citizen 504", by C. H. Palmer, and science fiction featured regularly thereafter. Five science fiction adventure novels by William Wallace Cook appeared, starting in 1903 with A Round Trip to
1485-554: A number of Western titles, including Hopalong Cassidy from 1948 to 1953. They also published comics starring actors known for their Western roles, including Tom Mix Western (1948–1953) and Gabby Hayes Western (1948–1953). Similarly, Dell Comics published Roy Rogers comics from 1948 to 1961, and Magazine Enterprises published Charles Starrett as the Durango Kid from 1949 to 1955. The Franco-Belgian comic-series Lucky Luke by Morris (cartoonist) and René Goscinny
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#17327797300471620-493: A personal pew in a popular church, which cost him $ 1,000 ($ 85,000 in 2023) a year. Munsey launched two more periodicals, hoping that they would establish themselves as profitable before The Argosy failed completely. The first was Munsey's Weekly , launched on February 2, 1889; the second was a newspaper, the Daily Continent , which he took over in February 1891 and gave up on four months later. The Weekly
1755-891: A position he kept for several years, writing on the side. Leonard had his first success in 1951 when Argosy magazine published his short story "Trail of the Apaches". During the 1950s and early '60s, he continued writing Westerns, publishing more than 30 short stories. His debut novel, The Bounty Hunters , was published in 1953 and was followed by four more Westerns. His early work already showed his affection for outsiders and underdogs. He developed his characters through dialogue, each defined by their manner of speech. In many stories, he favored Arizona and New Mexico as settings. Five of his westerns were adapted as movies before 1972: The Tall T (1957), 3:10 to Yuma (1957), Hombre (1967), Valdez Is Coming (1971), and Joe Kidd (1972). In 1969, his first crime story, The Big Bounce ,
1890-795: A rampage. In 1934, the baseball team the Detroit Tigers made it to the World Series , winning the Series in 1935. Leonard developed lifelong fascinations with sports and crime. He graduated from the University of Detroit Jesuit High School in 1943 and, after being rejected for the Marines for weak eyesight, immediately joined the Navy , where he served with the Seabees for three years in
2025-456: A series of stories in Argosy about Joel Quaite, a time detective who travels into the past to solve mysteries. Erle Stanley Gardner , later famous for his Perry Mason detective stories, sold "Rain Magic", his first science fiction short story, to Argosy in 1928, and went on to write several more. Gardner combined science fiction with detective plots in some of these stories, and he was not
2160-466: A setting. LaBrava , a 1983 novel set in the latter locale, was praised in a New York Times review, which said Leonard moved from mystery suspense short story writer to novelist. His next novel, Glitz (1985), an Atlantic City gambling story, was his breakout in the crime genre. It spent 16 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list , and his subsequent crime novels were all bestsellers. In his review of Glitz , Stephen King placed Leonard in
2295-478: A single letter, or a blank where a letter is meant to be. 'What in the hell's a Albanian?,' a guy named Clement asks in Chapter 4 of City Primeval (1980). Typesetters may have pounced upon what they took to be a typo, but Leonard never misheard. In that respect, as in others, he was less like Hemingway—of whom he was a fan, and to whom he was often compared—than like Dickens, another city kid with his nose and ear to
2430-661: A specialized genre got its start in the " penny dreadfuls " and later the " dime novels ". Published in June 1860, Malaeska; the Indian Wife of the White Hunter is considered the first dime novel. These cheaply made books were hugely successful and capitalized on the many stories that were being told about the mountain men , outlaws , settlers, and lawmen who were taming the western frontier. Many of these novels were fictionalized stories based on actual people, such as Billy
2565-477: A third-person narrative technique that gives the illusion of immediate access to a character's thoughts, "is unsurpassed in our time, and among the surest of all time, even if we include Jane Austen , Gustave Flaubert , and Hemingway in the mix." Leonard often cited Hemingway as his most important influence, but also criticized his lack of humor. Still, it was Leonard's affection for Hemingway, and for George V. Higgins , that led him to will his personal papers to
2700-454: A trilogy of Western novels: The Englishman's Boy , The Last Crossing , and A Good Man . Other more recent Western authors include Ivan Doig and William Kittredge . The genre has seen the rumblings of a revival, and 2008 saw the publication of an all-Western short story magazine Great Western Fiction which was published by Dry River Publishing in Colorado . Nevertheless, the magazine
2835-508: A weekly until the October 4, 1941 issue, then switched to an irregular schedule with two issues a month. Post left in early 1942, and was briefly replaced by Harry Gray and then for two issues by Burroughs Mitchell. In September 1942 Popular Publications , a pulp magazine publisher, bought all the Munsey pulp magazine titles from Dewart, including Argosy , which by this time had
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#17327797300472970-551: A woman’s viewpoint". In 1935 Clayton provided a list of hackneyed plots to be avoided, including escaping convicts, an underwater adventure in which the hero fights an octopus and a giant clam as well as the villain, and a legionnaire who "dies gloriously for Dear Old France". The policy of action stories told from a male viewpoint continued through the rest of the decade. Many writers who later became well-known sold to The Argosy early in their careers. William MacLeod Raine 's first story, "The Luck of Eustace Blount", appeared in
3105-431: Is not entirely accurate. It's true that his novels (more than forty of them, with another left unfinished at his death) enjoyed the company of criminals and of those who tried to stop them in their tracks. This was seldom hard, since, as Leonard delighted in showing us, crime—more than anything, even politics—allows men of all ages to disport themselves across the full range of human ineptitude. Boy, do they screw up. Leonard
3240-457: Is one of the most famous and estimated Western-comics in Europe. The popular Western comic strip Red Ryder was syndicated in hundreds of American newspapers from 1938 to 1964. In the 1970s, the work of Louis L'Amour began to catch hold of most western readers and he has dominated the western reader lists ever since. George G. Gilman also maintained a cult following for several years in
3375-511: The FX television series Justified and Justified: City Primeval . Among other honors, he won the 2009 Pen Lifetime Award and the 2012 Medal For Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Anthony Lane of The New Yorker wrote that Leonard was hailed as one of the best crime writers in the land. High praise, but not quite high enough, and some way off the mark. He was one of the best writers, and he happened to write about crime. Even that
3510-803: The Filipacchi Group . The last issue from Popular was dated November/December 1978. In addition to the monthly issues, between 1975 and 1978 Argosy published about fifty special issues on specific topics such as sharks, basketball, guns, or treasure hunting. There were also two associated magazines: Argosy UFO appeared in July 1976 and ceased publication with its eighth issue, dated Winter 1977/1978. Argosy Gun produced four issues dated from Fall 1977 and Summer 1978, and may have published more. Argosy has been revived four times. Four monthly issues appeared starting in August 1979, published by Lifetime Wholesalers, Inc. The last issue
3645-556: The South Pacific , where he earned the nickname "Dutch", after Tigers pitcher Dutch Leonard . Enrolling at the University of Detroit in 1946, he pursued writing more seriously, entering short stories in contests and submitting then to magazines for publication. He graduated in 1950 with a bachelor's degree in English and philosophy. A year before he graduated, he got a job as a copy writer with Campbell-Ewald Advertising Agency,
3780-913: The U. S. Marshals Carl Webster and Raylan Givens . At the time of his death his novels had sold tens of millions of copies. Among film adaptations of his work are Jackie Brown , (1997), based on Rum Punch and described as an "homage to the author's trademark rhythm and pace"; Get Shorty (1995); Out of Sight (1998) and the TV series Justified (2010—2015) and Justified: City Primeval (2023—). Nearly thirty movies were made from Leonard's novels, but for some critics his special style worked best in print. He married Beverly Clare Cline in 1949, and they had five children together—two daughters and three sons—before divorcing in 1977. His second marriage in 1979, to Joan Leanne Lancaster (aka Joan Shepard), ended with her death in 1993. Later that same year, he married Christine Kent and they divorced in 2012. Leonard spent
3915-608: The University of South Carolina , where many of Hemingway's and Higgins' papers are archived. Leonard's papers reside at the university's Irvin Department of Rare Books and Special Collections . John Steinbeck was another influence. Leonard in turn had a very strong influence on a generation of crime writers that followed him, among them George Pelecanos , Michael Connelly , Dennis Lehane , and Laura Lippman . Anthony Lane praised Leonard's ear for dialogue, comparing him to Dickens and Evelyn Waugh : "Leonard can make do with
4050-499: The Windsor Hotel on Fifth Avenue. Another advertising campaign was launched; it cost $ 20,000 ($ 678,000 in 2023) but produced no results, and Munsey began to experiment with the magazine, trying to find a profitable approach. He shortened the title to just The Argosy with the December 1, 1888 issue to make it sound more like an adventure magazine and less like a children's paper. He later commented that he had not realized
4185-411: The "Best Western Writer of All Time". Early in the 1970s Indiana novelist Marilyn Durham wrote two popular Western novels, The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing and Dutch Uncle . Western readership as a whole began to drop off in the mid- to late 1970s. A partial exception was an innovation, the so-called "adult western". As Robert J. Randisi puts it, "it's a western novel with sex in it. That's right,
Elmore Leonard - Misplaced Pages Continue
4320-579: The "Big Four" pulp magazines, along with Blue Book , Adventure and Short Stories . In the early 1960s Theodore Peterson, a magazine historian, considered the slick incarnation of Argosy , along with True , to be "the best magazines of their kind". Peterson suggests that it was the success of these two magazines that led to the expansion of the men's magazine market during the 1950s. Argosy 's title changed many times, either in an attempt to attract more readers, or because of mergers with other magazines. The long history of Argosy meant that by
4455-702: The 1920s, Western fiction greatly benefited (as did the author Max Brand , who excelled at the western short story). Pulp magazines that specialised in Westerns include Cowboy Stories , Ranch Romances , Star Western , West , and Western Story Magazine . The simultaneous popularity of Western movies in the 1920s also helped the genre. In the 1940s several seminal Westerns were published, including The Ox-Bow Incident (1940) by Walter van Tilburg Clark , The Big Sky (1947) and The Way West (1949) by A.B. Guthrie Jr. , and Shane (1949) by Jack Schaefer . Many other Western authors gained readership in
4590-658: The 1930s there were many stories readers had heard of but could no longer obtain. In response to reader requests, Munsey launched Famous Fantastic Mysteries in 1939 to reprint old stories from both Argosy and All-Story Weekly . The following year Munsey launched Fantastic Novels , another reprint magazine, to make longer stories available without needing to serialize them in Famous Fantastic Mysteries . Fantastic Novels only lasted five issues before being discontinued in 1941, but Famous Fantastic Mysteries lasted for 81 issues, ceasing publication with
4725-524: The 1950s, such as Ray Hogan, Louis L'Amour , and Luke Short . The genre peaked around the early 1960s, largely due to the tremendous number of Westerns on television . The burnout of the American public on television Westerns in the late 1960s seemed to have an effect on the literature as well, and interest in Western literature began to wane. In 1968 Charles Portis published True Grit , which became
4860-411: The 1970s ( Fifty-Two Pickup , Swag , Unknown Man No. 89 , The Switch ); Four Novels of the 1980s ( City Primeval , LaBrava , Glitz , Freaky Deaky ) and Four Later Novels ( Get Shorty , Rum Punch , Out of Sight , Tishomingo Blues and the short story "Karen Makes Out".) Leonard also contributed one chapter (the twelfth of thirteen) to the 1996 Miami Herald parody serial novel Naked Came
4995-467: The 1970s and 1980s. Larry McMurtry 's and Cormac McCarthy 's works remain notable. Specifically, McMurtry's Lonesome Dove and McCarthy's Blood Meridian (both published in 1985) are recognized as major masterpieces both within and beyond the genre. Elmer Kelton , mostly noted for his novels The Good Old Boys and The Time it Never Rained , was voted by the Western Writers of America as
5130-598: The Elmore Leonard oeuvre, notably Frank Muller (11 audiobooks), Grover Gardner aka Alexander Adams (7), George Guidall (5), Mark Hammer (5), and Joe Mantegna (5). Other notable Leonard narrators include Liev Schreiber , Neil Patrick Harris , Tom Wopat , Arliss Howard , Joe Morton , Taye Diggs , Brian Dennehy , Bruce Boxleitner , Tom Skerritt , Robert Forster , Dylan Baker , Paul Rudd , Keith Carradine , Ed Asner , and Henry Rollins . Twenty-six of Leonard's novels and short stories have been adapted for
5265-633: The February 1902 issue. William Hamilton Osborne 's first sale was also to The Argosy , but after paying for it White returned the story to Osborne as the plot was too similar to other stories that had appeared elsewhere. It did eventually appear in the New York Daily News , but Osborne's first appearance in print was in The Argosy with "Turner's Luck with Rouge et Noir", in the September 1902 issue. Louis Joseph Vance ,
5400-488: The February 5, 1887 issue, and credited it with adding 20,000 to The Golden Argosy 's circulation. Over five months the campaign gave away 11,500,000 sample issues: his debt ballooned to $ 95,000 ($ 3.22 million in 2023), but he was now clearing $ 1,500 ($ 51,000 in 2023) a week in profit, and circulation reached 115,000 in May 1887. The improvement in Munsey's finances in 1887 was temporary, though before Munsey realized it he had given up his cheap rooms and moved to
5535-449: The July and August 1942 issues. The hearings were thought by most publishers to be pointless, and nobody from Munsey attended. Argosy briefly lost its permit as a result, but did not miss any issues. When Popular Publications acquired Argosy at the end of 1942, they announced that it would immediately return to a fiction-only format. Richard Abbott, the editor of Writer's Digest , commented that Popular were "again making Argosy
Elmore Leonard - Misplaced Pages Continue
5670-424: The June 1953 issue. Popular brought back Fantastic Novels for another 20 issues between 1948 and 1951, and also produced five issues of A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine , also as a reprint venue for stories from the old Munsey magazines, between 1949 and 1950. In 1976 Popular published two anthology magazines of stories, mostly science fiction and fantasy, titled The Best of Argosy Annual , though only some of
5805-565: The Kid , Buffalo Bill , Wyatt Earp (who was still alive at the time), Wild Bill Hickok , and Jesse James . By 1900, the new medium of pulp magazines helped to relate these adventures to easterners. Meanwhile, non-American authors, like the German Karl May , picked up the genre, went to full novel length, and made it hugely popular and successful in continental Europe from about 1880 on, though they were generally dismissed as trivial by
5940-507: The Manatee ( ISBN 0-449-00124-5 ). Nearly all of Leonard's novels have been performed as audiobooks. A number of them (including The Big Bounce , Be Cool and The Tonto Woman ) have been recorded more than once resulting in over 60 English-language audiobook versions of his novels. Many of the earlier recordings were abridgements, the last of which was Pagan Babies (2000) read by Steve Buscemi . Certain narrators have dominated
6075-474: The March 1899 issue. William Wallace Cook contributed numerous serials in the first decade of the 20th century, beginning with The Spur of Necessity in the September 1900 issue after half-a-dozen sales to other markets. Cook wrote adventure fiction with elements of satire, an unusual combination for the pulps. James Branch Cabell 's first sale was to The Argosy ; his "An Amateur Ghost" appeared in
6210-616: The March 3, 1883 issue; Frank H. Converse , who in addition to an early serial ( A Voyage to the Gold Coast, or Jack Bond's Quest , beginning in the March 24, 1883 issue) had several short stories in the first couple of years of the magazine; Oliver Optic , ( Making a Man of Himself , beginning in the October 20, 1883 issue); and G. A. Henty ( Facing Peril: A Tale of the Coal Mines , from September 5, 1885). The magazine's subtitle, Freighted with Treasures for Boys and Girls ,
6345-525: The November 1, 1924 issue with the first installment of his novel Nothing but Money . Most of MacIsaac's work was not science fiction; an exception was The Hothouse World , a serial that ran in Argosy from February 21 to March 28, 1931. Theodore Roscoe was a frequent contributor of adventure stories set in exotic locations such as Timbuktu and Saigon . He traveled the world once his writing began to pay him well enough to allow him to do so, and used
6480-502: The Redcoats Came to Bennington", an early story by Upton Sinclair , appeared in the December 1895 issue. After the change to an all-fiction monthly format in 1896, The Argosy was a men's and boy's adventure magazine, though The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction describes many of the serials in the first decade or so after the change as "still only a little above juvenile adventure stories". In 1926, Albert William Stone ,
6615-521: The September 1914 Argosy , and Walt Coburn 's first story, "The Peace Treaty of the Seven Up", in the July 8, 1922 issue. Max Brand , a very prolific Western writer, sold his first pulp stories to All-Story in 1917, but by the end of the year had begun selling to Argosy too. Clarence Mulford was the creator of the character Hopalong Cassidy ; the first few stories in the series appeared in other magazines, but many were published in Argosy in
6750-654: The US in his lifetime. An exception was The Lake of Gold , serialized in The Argosy from December 1902 to July 1903, in which a group of Britons and Americans use the riches from a lake of gold in Patagonia to enforce peace across Europe. The Argosy 's sister magazine, All-Story Weekly , was the venue for most of the science fiction in the Munsey magazines, but Argosy printed Murray Leinster 's first science fiction story, "The Runaway Skyscraper", in 1919. Leinster's first sale, "The Atmosphere", had appeared in The Argosy
6885-747: The Year 2000, or A Flight Through Time . Lost race stories continued to appear, such as Frank Aubrey 's A Queen of Atlantis (1899), Frank Savile's Beyond the Great South Wall (1899–1900), and Perley Poore Sheehan 's The Abyss of Wonders (1915), described by Hulse as "arguably the finest lost race novel ever to appear in a Munsey magazine". Francis Stevens contributed another lost world novel, The Citadel of Fear , in 1918. Humorous stories about scientific inventions were another theme. Howard Rogert Garis began selling to Argosy in 1904; his "Professor Jonkin" stories were lighthearted examples of
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#17327797300477020-457: The air between these three banks. It was a dizzy, dazzling, daring game, a game to live for, to die for, a royal glorious game". Munsey told a story of being unable to meet payroll because the New York bank would not give him credit. He went to the bank, upbraided the president for his "effrontery", and left without letting the man speak. When his employee went to the bank again that day, he
7155-582: The campaign he had been unable to get credit; after it he was $ 8,000 ($ 253,000 in 2023) in debt to his suppliers. Ten years later Munsey recalled the change, and said "That debt made me. Before, I had no credit and had to live from hand to mouth. But when I owed $ 8,000 my creditors didn't dare drop me. They saw their only chance of getting anything was to keep me going." Munsey had a bank account in New York, but kept two more, in Maine and Chicago, moving funds between them constantly: "I kept thousands of dollars in
7290-477: The change to pulp format. White had sent Stone an encouraging note in reply to an early submission of his: "Two things I like about this story are its Western atmosphere, and its brevity—two thousand five hundred words ... If those hints are of any value to you, try us again." In the interview with Stone, White expanded upon what he was looking for. "I require yarns ... that violate the traditions relative to 'logical development'. By this I mean that I do not want
7425-518: The company of Raymond Chandler , Dashiell Hammett and John D. MacDonald . Leonard believed that his books during the 1980s were becoming funnier and that he was developing a style that was more free and easy. His own favorites were Freaky Deaky (1988), about ex- hippie criminals and the Dixie Mafia story Tishomingo Blues (2002). Some of Leonard's characters appear in several novels, including mobster Chili Palmer, bank robber Jack Foley and
7560-463: The convictions. NBC adapted the series for television in 1957. Popular sold Argosy to David Geller in 1972, and in 1978 Geller sold it to the Filipacchi Group , which closed it at the end of the year. The magazine has been revived several times, most recently in 2016. In the late 1870s, Frank Munsey was working in Augusta, Maine , as the manager of the local Western Union office. He helped
7695-458: The cover. Up to this point The Argosy had had text only on the cover, and no art, but in 1905, probably in response to The Popular Magazine , it began to run limited color art on the cover, and in 1912 it began to use full-color cover art. At the start of the 1920s the most frequent cover artists for Argosy were Modest Stein , Stockton Mulford , and P. J Monahan ; by the end of the decade Paul Stahr and Robert Graef had taken over most of
7830-496: The covers, and remained the main cover artists until the mid-1930s. Hulse considers the artwork of this era to have been "consistently good". Towards the end of the 1930s Rudolph Belarski , Emmett Watson , and George Rozen become regular cover artists. Virgil Finlay was a popular illustrator for the Munsey magazines at the end of the 1930s and start of the 1940s. When Argosy planned to reprint Seven Footprints to Satan , one of A. Merritt's novels, in 1939, Merritt persuaded
7965-415: The cowboy has sex with women. A new idea? Probably not, but heretofore this had not been seen in western novels (certainly not by Max Brand, Zane Grey, Owen Wister or Louis L'Amour). What these books actually showed was that men and women really did have sex in the old west. (Back when I started the series a rigidly traditional western writer of my acquaintance insisted to me that "women did not have orgasms in
8100-487: The creator of the character The Lone Wolf , published most of his fiction in The Popular Magazine , but his first two sales were to Munsey, including The Coil of Circumstance , a serial that began in the November 1903 Argosy . Albert Payson Terhune , later the author of Lad: A Dog , frequently published in the Munsey magazines early in his career. His first sale to The Argosy was "The Fugitive",
8235-522: The early 1920s. Robert E. Howard , best known for his stories about Conan the Barbarian , also wrote Westerns, several of which were published in Argosy in the mid-1930s. O. Henry appeared in the March 1904 Argosy with "Witches Loaves". H. Bedford-Jones , a popular author with over 1,000 stories published in the pulps over his career, sold his first story, "Out of a Stormy Sky", to The Argosy in 1910, and appeared in its pages regularly for
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#17327797300478370-463: The early 1960s, largely due to the popularity of televised Westerns such as Bonanza . Readership began to drop off in the mid- to late 1970s and reached a new low in the 2000s. Most bookstores, outside a few west American states, only carry a small number of Western fiction books. The predecessor of the Western in American literature emerged early with tales of the frontier . The most famous of
8505-628: The early 19th-century frontier novels were James Fenimore Cooper 's five novels comprising the Leatherstocking Tales . Cooper's novels were largely set in what was at the time the American frontier : the Appalachian Mountains and areas west of there. As did his novel The Prairie (1824), most later westerns would typically take place west of the Mississippi River . The notable writer Washington Irving
8640-408: The editing chair again. Circulation prospered under Popular, reaching 600,000 in June 1948, and 1.25 million by 1954. This growth was aided by some lucky publicity, broadcast to millions of radio listeners: after the acquisition by Popular, Argosy was the subject of a question on the popular Take It or Leave It radio show, which referred to it as a pulp magazine. Two weeks later
8775-405: The editor, G. W. Post, to use Finlay as the interior illustrator. In 1942, in an attempt to revive the magazine's fortunes, the all-fiction format was abandoned and articles about World War II and "sensationalized" news stories were added. The cover was redesigned starting with the March 7, 1942, issue, with the outline of a jet plane replacing the galleon behind the title, and a picture of
8910-409: The end of 1943, the policy had changed back to include feature articles again as well as fiction. This made Argosy a competitor with slick general men's magazines such as True . The publisher, Harry Steeger, later explained the reason for the change of focus, arguing that women had been the primary target for advertisers before World War II, but afterwards "new buying pursuits were adopted by
9045-489: The end of the year; White had been the founder and editor of The Boys' World , which Munsey bought in 1887, merging the subscriptions with The Golden Argosy . At the same time Munsey doubled the page count and increased the price from five cents to six. In 1887 he began a national advertising campaign, with traveling representatives as far west as Nebraska, and a mail campaign for points further west. He wrote another story, The Boy Broker , for serialization, beginning in
9180-561: The experience to add color to his stories. Borden Chase sold his first story, "Tunnel Men", to Argosy in 1934 while he was a laborer on the tunnel being built under the East River in New York. He became a regular contributor, and his "East River", which appeared in Argosy in December 1934, was filmed the following year as Under Pressure . Ship of the Line , an early novel in C. S. Forester 's stories about Horatio Hornblower ,
9315-571: The film star Dorothy Lamour on the cover instead of the usual adventure-themed cover art. The title was changed to The New Argosy , though this change was reversed with the August issue. The publication frequency was changed to monthly starting in May. The new version of Argosy was almost immediately caught in a crackdown by Frank Walker , the Postmaster General . The Post Office declared that publishers should consider "decency and good morals" in deciding what could be included in
9450-414: The fine old book it was", and that when they acquired Argosy it had "recently been degraded by wretched editing". In September 1943, the format changed from pulp to slick, but Popular still planned to print only fiction. Rogers Terrill, the editor, announced that "we have stepped out of the pulp field entirely ... We felt there was room in the country for an all-fiction slick, and we're it." By
9585-410: The first pulp magazine . The all-fiction format brought about another jump in circulation to 80,000. In 1898, with circulation still at around 80,000, Munsey bought Peterson's Magazine and merged it into The Argosy . A year or so later circulation began to climb again: Munsey spent nothing on advertising, but circulation reached 300,000 in 1902, and hit half a million in 1907, 25 years after it
9720-404: The first installment of two novels: Do and Dare, or a Brave Boy's Fight for a Fortune , by Horatio Alger , which took the cover page, and Nick and Nellie, or God Helps them that Helps Themselves , by Edward S. Ellis . There were also short stories and some non-fiction. The target audience was both boys and girls, from ten to twenty years old. When Munsey began to write serialized novels for
9855-461: The founding members were mostly western fiction writers, the organization began getting a number of other members from other backgrounds such as historians, regional history buffs, and writers from other genres. Western Fictioneers, founded in 2010, is a professional writers' group that encourages and promotes the traditional Westerns. It is the only professional writers' organization composed entirely of authors who have written Western fiction. Fans of
9990-521: The funds sent to him, but received no reply, and since this made it impossible to start the magazine as planned, Munsey released his New York friend from his promise of investment. This left Munsey with only about $ 40 ($ 1,260 in 2023), along with the manuscripts he had in hand, which had cost over $ 500 to acquire. He began looking for a publisher who would back the new magazine, and eventually persuaded E. G. Rideout to take it on. The first issue, titled The Golden Argosy , with Munsey as editor and manager,
10125-432: The genre may join as patron members. The Western Fictioneers' annual Peacemakers competition awards prizes in many categories of Western writing. Argosy (magazine) Argosy was an American magazine, founded in 1882 as The Golden Argosy , a children's weekly, edited by Frank Munsey and published by E. G. Rideout . Munsey took over as publisher when Rideout went bankrupt in 1883, and after many struggles made
10260-480: The genre, and other examples came from H.D. Smiley, whose "Bagley's Coagulated Cyclone" and "Bagley's Rain-Machine" appeared in the September 1906 and February 1907 issues. Some more sophisticated science fiction also appeared, including "Finis", an end of the world story by Frank Lillie Pollock , in June 1906. George Griffith , an important early science fiction writer from the UK, published almost none of his work in
10395-454: The ground... One proof of literary genius, we might say, is a democratic generosity toward your mother tongue—the conviction that every part or particle of speech, be it e'er so humble, can be put to fruitful use... He is gone now, but he left us a fine consolation: if you've never read him, or if you'd never heard of him until yesterday, or if you merely need a fitting way to mourn, pick up 52 Pick-Up, LaBrava, Swag, or Glitz, and tune into
10530-579: The interest of speeding the story along. In his essay "Elmore Leonard's Ten Rules of Writing" he said: "My most important rule is one that sums up the 10: If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it." He also said: "I try to leave out the parts that readers tend to skip." Leonard has been called "the Dickens of Detroit" because of his intimate portraits of people from that city, though he said, "If I lived in Buffalo , I'd write about Buffalo." His favorite epithet
10665-635: The last years of his life with his family in Oakland County, Michigan . He suffered a stroke on July 29, 2013. Initial reports stated that he was recovering, but on August 20, 2013, Leonard died at his home in the Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills of stroke complications. He was 87 years old. One of Leonard's grandchildren is Alex Leonard, the drummer in the Detroit band Protomartyr . Commended by critics for his gritty realism and strong dialogue , Leonard sometimes took liberties with grammar in
10800-547: The literary critics of the day. One of the most famous pulp works of the era was Johnston McCulley 's first Zorro novel, The Curse of Capistrano (1919). Popularity grew with the publication of Owen Wister 's novel The Virginian (1902) and especially Zane Grey 's Riders of the Purple Sage (1912). The first Hopalong Cassidy stories by Clarence Mulford appeared in 1904, both as dime novels and in pulp magazines . When pulp magazines exploded in popularity in
10935-486: The loan. Fogler declined, and Munsey had to arrange for another loan at 18% interest to cover the repayment. In October 1893 Munsey cut the price of Munsey's Magazine to ten cents ($ 3.16 in 2023). He had to struggle to distribute it at this price, since the American News Company had a monopoly on magazine distribution and had little interest in a low-priced magazine. By the February issue Munsey
11070-467: The magazine had been to make it a close copy of Golden Days , a weekly paper for children published in Philadelphia by James Elverson , and to include lithographed covers and internal illustrations. He abandoned these ideas and came up with a simplified approach, still based on Golden Days , that he believed could be made profitable. He wrote to the stockbroker who had promised $ 2,500 to get
11205-602: The magazine merged with All-Story Weekly , another Munsey pulp, and from 1929 it became just Argosy . In 1925 Munsey died, and the publisher, the Frank A. Munsey Company, was purchased by William Dewart , who had worked for Munsey. By 1942 circulation had fallen to no more than 50,000, and after a failed effort to revive the magazine by including sensational non-fiction, it was sold that year to Popular Publications , another pulp magazine publisher. Popular converted it from pulp to slick format , and initially attempted to make it
11340-453: The magazine profitable. He shortened the title to The Argosy in 1888 and targeted an audience of men and boys with adventure stories. In 1894 he switched it to a monthly schedule and in 1896 he eliminated all non-fiction and started using cheap pulp paper, making it the first pulp magazine . Circulation had reached half a million by 1907, and remained strong until the 1930s. The name was changed to Argosy All-Story Weekly in 1920 after
11475-413: The magazine's title and subscription list in return for his debt, succeeding over a competing claim from a publisher who would have merged the magazine's subscriptions into those of his own publication. The first issue with Munsey as publisher was dated September 8, 1883. Munsey again was reduced to a few dollars, but he was able to borrow $ 300 ($ 9,800 in 2023) from Oscar Holway, a banker in Augusta who
11610-450: The magazine, starting with Afloat in a Great City in 1886, he used the same basic plot that Alger had been successful with: rags to riches stories of boys succeeding against the odds. Other early serials were boys' adventure tales, occasionally with science fiction ideas such as lost races . Multiple serials often ran simultaneously. Early contributors included Harry Castlemon , whose Don Gordon's Shooting-Box began serialization in
11745-402: The male and it began to be recognized by the advertising agencies that the male was an individual to be reckoned with in the purchase of all types of products ...". The non-fiction material was mostly written in-house; in 1950 Argosy rejected over 99% of the unsolicited non-fiction manuscripts it received. After Argosy was acquired by Popular Publications, less science fiction appeared for
11880-517: The most popular series in the magazine, with all twenty stories appearing in Argosy into the mid-1930s. Under his own name and a pseudonym, Loring Brent, Worts contributed scores of other stories to Argosy over the same period. Johnston McCulley had launched his Zorro series in All-Story in 1919 and more episodes appeared in Argosy after the two magazines merged. Fred MacIsaac , one of Argosy 's most popular authors, first appeared in
12015-452: The most successful work of the era. Western novels, films and pulps gave birth to Western comics , which were very popular, particularly from the late 1940s until c. 1967 , when the comics began to turn to reprints. This can particularly be seen at Marvel Comics , where Westerns began c. 1948 and thrived until 1967, when one of their flagship titles, Kid Colt Outlaw (1949–1979), ceased to have new stories and entered
12150-533: The next four decades. Bedford-Jones's series about adventurer John Solomon began with The Gate of Farewell , serialized in the January and February 1914 issues, and continued in The Argosy and elsewhere for over twenty years. George Worts published the first of his "Peter the Brazen" series, about an "expert wireless operator and dauntless adventurer", in Argosy in the October 5, 1918 issue; it became one of
12285-421: The next two decades by authors such as Ray Cummings , Ralph Milne Farley , Otis Adelbert Kline , Victor Rousseau , Eando Binder , Donald Wandrei , Manly Wade Wellman , Jack Williamson , Arthur Leo Zagat , and Henry Kuttner . Merritt's The Ship of Ishtar , which was serialized in 1924, was voted Argosy 's most popular story in a reader poll in 1938. In 1940 and 1941 Frederick C. Painton published
12420-430: The old west.")." Readership of western fiction reached a new low in the first decade of the twenty-first century, and most bookstores, outside a few western states, only carry a small number of Western fiction books. Nevertheless, several Western fiction series are published monthly, such as The Trailsman , Slocum , Longarm and The Gunsmith ; these are all "adult westerns". Canadian author Guy Vanderhaeghe wrote
12555-476: The only writer to do so: Garret Smith 's "You've Killed Privacy!" in the July 7, 1928 Argosy was about using CCTV to catch criminals, and Leinster's "Darkness on Fifth Avenue", in the November 30, 1929 Argosy , about a device that can bring artificial darkness to an area, was originally intended for the detective pulps. Argosy 's Western fiction included Zane Grey 's Last of the Duanes , which appeared in
12690-484: The point where it no longer covered its own costs. The expenses Munsey had taken on after the successful campaign in 1887 were now a drain, and when his friend Fogler visited, and was impressed that Munsey was living at the Windsor, he told Fogler, "I can't afford it ... but it is a means to an end. It gives me standing to have the acquaintance of the men I meet here." Fogler also discovered on that visit that Munsey had
12825-502: The previous year. Edgar Rice Burroughs 's Barsoom series had begun in All-Story Weekly , as had his Tarzan novels; when the two magazines merged in 1920 later episodes of each series appeared in the combined magazine, Argosy All-Story Weekly . Abraham Merritt 's The Metal Monster began serialization in the August 7 issue, the third one after the merger, and many more science fiction and fantasy stories followed in
12960-425: The problems attendant on magazines for children—they grew up quickly and dropped their subscriptions, so circulation was very difficult to maintain, and because they had little spending power it was hard to interest advertisers. He reduced the page size and increased the page count, and added illustrated covers, and cut the price, and then reversed all these changes, but nothing worked. In 1890 circulation dropped to
13095-439: The publisher, was sold to William Dewart , who had been working for Munsey. Matthew White, who had been editor since 1886, was finally replaced by A. H. Bittner in 1928. Bittner stayed as editor for three years; and his successors throughout the 1930s each lasted between one and three years. In October 1929 Munsey's Magazine and Argosy All-Story Weekly were combined and immediately split again into two magazines: one
13230-587: The quality of the fiction in Argosy during the pulp era, comments that during the 1920s some "bland, conventional dramas" appeared in the magazine, by writers such as Edgar Franklin , Isabel Ostrander , and E. J. Rath . Hulse suggests that this editorial policy was aimed at attracting more women readers to the magazine. After White's editorship, and for the next fifteen years, the requirements that Argosy 's editors sent to writers' magazines such as Writer's Digest and Author & Journalist emphasized that they were looking for stories focused on action, with
13365-508: The regular weekly schedule but the financial pressure on him was enormous. Rideout had set up Munsey in an office on Barclay Street in what is now known as Tribeca , in Manhattan; Munsey moved to an office on Warren Street nearby to reduce the rent, and he and Douglas would eat in a German beer saloon where they could get a free lunch. Munsey and Douglas assembled free material by rewriting items from English boys' papers. One week, Douglas
13500-553: The reprint phase. Other notable long-running Marvel Western comics included Rawhide Kid (1955–1957, 1960–1979) Two-Gun Kid (1948–1962), and Marvel Wild Western (1948–1957). DC Comics published the long-running series All-Star Western (1951–1961) and Western Comics (1948–1961), and Charlton Comics published Billy the Kid (1957–1983) and Cheyenne Kid (1957–1973). Magazine Enterprises ' Straight Arrow ran from 1950 to 1956, and Prize Comics ' Prize Comics Western ran from 1948 to 1956. Fawcett Comics published
13635-479: The right to adapt Leonard's novel Forty Lashes Less One (1972). Western fiction Western fiction is a genre of literature set in the American Old West frontier and typically set from the late eighteenth to the late nineteenth century. Well-known writers of Western fiction include Zane Grey from the early 20th century and Louis L'Amour from the mid-20th century. The genre peaked around
13770-449: The screen (19 as motion pictures and another seven as television programs). Numerous Leonard novels and short stories have been adapted as films including Get Shorty (1990 novel, 1995 film), Out of Sight (1996 novel, 1998 film) and Rum Punch (1992 novel, 1997 film Jackie Brown ). The novel 52 Pickup was first adapted very loosely into the 1984 film The Ambassador (1984), starring Robert Mitchum and, two years later, under
13905-504: The serials that had been running in each of the two magazines before the merger, and Moskowitz comments that this approach "was such that it is doubtful that a single nonduplicating reader was lost from either magazine". The page count gradually dropped again as the serials were completed, from 224 after the merger to 144 at the end of the year. In December 1925 Munsey had appendicitis, and never recovered; he died, aged 71, on December 22. The Frank A. Munsey Corporation, which continued as
14040-403: The show's host apologized, and asked the studio audience to chant " Argosy is a slick" on the air. Argosy's circulation remained over a million until at least 1973, and the advertising revenue this provided made the magazine an attractive acquisition target. Steeger sold Popular Publications to David Geller's Brookside Publications in 1972. In early January 1978 Geller sold the company to
14175-545: The slightly altered 52 Pick-Up title starring Roy Scheider . Leonard has also written several screenplays based on his novels, plus original screenplays such as Joe Kidd (1972). The film Hombre (1967), starring Paul Newman, was an adaptation of Leonard's 1961 eponymous novel . His short story " Three-Ten to Yuma " (March 1953) and novels The Big Bounce (1969) and 52 Pickup (1974) have each been filmed twice. Other novels filmed include: Quentin Tarantino has optioned
14310-440: The story developed in what is commonly called the 'natural' way. I require unexpected development—surprises at every turn it is possible to have them without destroying the convincingness of the story ... In other words, stories that are a constant challenge to the author's inventive ability, one situation after another, and that keep the writer perspiring freely." Ed Hulse, a historian of pulp magazines, while generally praising
14445-483: The story, distributing 100,000 sample copies of the March 13, 1886 issue containing the first installment of the serial in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the surrounding areas. The campaign was a success, and from being a more-or-less breakeven concern, The Golden Argosy began to net Munsey about $ 100 a week in profit, not counting the cost of the campaign. This convinced Munsey to invest further in building circulation. A new editor, Matthew White , took over from Douglas at
14580-498: The voices of America—calling loud and clear, and largely ungrammatical, from Atlantic City, Miami, Hollywood, and his home turf of Detroit. Elmore Leonard got them right, and did them proud. As Clement would say, he was a author." Leonard has been anthologized by the Library of America in four volumes: Westerns ( Last Stand at Saber River , Hombre , Valdez is Coming , Forty Lashes Less One and eight short stories); Four Novels of
14715-468: Was adapted for television as a 26-episode series by NBC . Many of the convictions were eventually overturned. John Clute , discussing the American pulp magazines in the first two decades of the twentieth century, has described The Argosy and its companion The All-Story as "the most important pulps of their era." In the era before the Second World War, Argosy was regarded as one of
14850-431: Was a friend. At about this time he bought some stories from Malcolm Douglas, but when Douglas came to collect his payment Munsey offered him the job of editor, at $ 10 ($ 300 in 2023) per week, in lieu of payment for the stories. Douglas accepted. A friend from Augusta, John Fogler, who had become cashier of Augusta's First National Bank, was able to arrange another loan for Munsey, of $ 1,000. Munsey managed to maintain
14985-586: Was a loan to Munsey. Munsey invested $ 500 of his own, and his friend in New York City added another $ 1,000, making a total of $ 4,000 ($ 126,000 in 2023) in capital. Munsey resigned from Western Union, and moved to New York on September 23, 1882, bringing with him manuscripts he had bought for the magazine before leaving Augusta. Once in New York, Munsey quickly realized that the cost estimates he had made, based on what he had been able to learn while in Maine, were unrealistically low. His original plan for
15120-489: Was able to cash the payroll check. The fact that The Golden Argosy never missed an issue also helped Munsey persuade the businesses he worked with to extend him credit, which in turn helped him invest in the business. In the winter of 1885/1886 he wrote a serial , Afloat in a Great City , with the intention of using it as the basis for an advertising campaign to increase subscriptions. Munsey owed $ 5,000 at this point, and went into debt by about another $ 10,000 to advertise
15255-486: Was adapted as 3:10 to Yuma , which was remade in 2007 . Rum Punch was adapted as the Quentin Tarantino film Jackie Brown (1997). Steven Soderbergh adapted Out of Sight in 1998 into a film of the same name . Get Shorty was adapted into an eponymous film in 1995, and in 2017 it was adapted into a television series of the same name . His writings were also the basis for The Tall T , as well as
15390-434: Was an exception, but Munsey kept both Argosy and All-Story at only ten cents. In 1920 he merged All-Story Weekly into The Argosy , explaining that this let him keep the price of the combined magazine at ten cents, while saving "all the cost of stories in one magazine, all the cost of the editorial force, all the cost of typesetting, all the cost of making electrotype plates, and many other minor costs". Sam Moskowitz ,
15525-539: Was born in New Orleans , Louisiana , the son of Flora Amelia (née Rive) and Elmore John Leonard. Because his father worked as a site locator for General Motors , the family moved frequently for several years. In 1934, the family settled in Detroit . In the 1930s, there were two news items that would influence many of Leonard's works. From 1931, until they were killed in May 1934, gangsters Bonnie and Clyde were on
15660-399: Was dated December 9, 1882; it was eight pages long and cost five cents ($ 1.58 in 2023). Subscribers were offered a set of colored chromolithographs along with their subscription. Five months later Rideout went bankrupt. Munsey had not drawn all his salary, and Rideout had borrowed money from him as well, so he was owed about $ 1,000 ($ 33,000 in 2023) by the bankrupt company. He claimed
15795-424: Was dated November 1979. Between 1989 and 1994, six issues were produced by Richard Kyle, at irregular intervals. Three more issues, dated in 2004 and 2005, appeared from Lou Anders and James A. Owen , with the third issue edited by Owen alone, and retitled Argosy Quarterly . One more issue, from Altus Press, appeared in 2016, edited by Matthew Moring. The first issue of The Golden Argosy included
15930-493: Was devoted to science fiction; the stories in it were all reprinted from Popular's Super Science Stories , rather than from earlier issues of Argosy . In September 1948 Erle Stanley Gardner began a true-crime column in Argosy called "The Court of Last Resort". Gardner enlisted assistance from professional experts to examine the cases of dozens of convicts who maintained their innocence after their appeals were exhausted. The column ran for ten years, ending in October 1958, and
16065-584: Was dropped in 1886, though the contents were still aimed at the same youthful readers as before. P. T. Barnum 's Dick Broadhead: a Story of Wild Animals and the Circus was serialized from May to August 1887. There was little science fiction in the early years; one exception was The Conquest of the Moon , by Andre Laurie , which began serialization in The Argosy in 1889; another was William Murray Graydon's The River of Darkness; or, Under Africa (1890). "When
16200-591: Was given to him by Britain's New Musical Express : "the poet laureate of wild assholes with revolvers". His ear for dialogue has been praised by writers such as Saul Bellow and Martin Amis . "Your prose makes Raymond Chandler look clumsy," Amis told Leonard at a Writers Guild event in Beverly Hills in 1998. Stephen King called Leonard "the great American writer." According to Charles Rzepka of Boston University , Leonard's mastery of free indirect discourse ,
16335-542: Was inspired by Cooper and wrote tales of the American frontier beginning with A Tour on the Prairies which related his recent travels on the frontier. In 1834, he was approached by fur magnate John Jacob Astor , who convinced him to write a history of his fur trading colony in Astoria, Oregon . Irving made quick work of Astor's project, shipping the fawning biographical account Astoria in February 1836. The Western as
16470-428: Was launched. The magazine absorbed two other Munsey publications, The Puritan and Junior Munsey , in 1902, and Munsey credited some of the increase in circulation to the mergers. The Argosy 's circulation fell from this peak, and it returned to a weekly schedule in 1917. In 1906 Munsey had started The Railroad Man's Magazine , which carried both fiction and non-fiction; after the January 18, 1919 issue it
16605-497: Was merged into The Argosy , which was briefly retitled Argosy and Railroad Man's Magazine , reverting to just Argosy with the May 31 issue. Paper shortages caused by World War I forced a reduction in the page count of both The Argosy and All-Story Weekly , another Munsey fiction magazine, and costs continued to go up after the war. Most of the other major fiction magazines of the day increased their price to twenty cents ($ 6.08 in 2023). At fifteen cents, Top-Notch Magazine
16740-515: Was not a success either, and in late 1891 Munsey converted it into a monthly, Munsey's Magazine , priced at twenty-five cents ($ 8.48 in 2023). Fogler, now working for a bank in Kansas, arranged a loan for Munsey that grew to $ 8,000 ($ 271,000 in 2023), with half Munsey's stock as collateral. During the Panic of 1893 the bank called in the loan, and Munsey offered Fogler the stock if he would take over
16875-404: Was printing 200,000 copies, and it soon became successful enough to guarantee his financial security. The Argosy did not share in the success of Munsey's Magazine ; circulation continued to decline, but Munsey kept it going, as he later said, "as a matter of sentiment", and to see what could be made of it. From a high of 115,000 the circulation fell to 9,000 for the March 24, 1894 issue, which
17010-455: Was promoted to editor from executive editor. Lewis resigned in 1954, and was replaced for one issue (October 1954) by James O'Connell, who had been fiction editor of Argosy since 1948. Ken Purdy , the editor of Argosy 's main rival, True , was hired, but stayed less than a year. Steeger later said that hiring Purdy was the most expensive mistake he ever made; Argosy ran at a substantial loss under his editorship. Steeger then took
17145-437: Was published by Gold Medal Books . Leonard differed from well-known names writing in this genre—he was less interested in melodrama than in his characters and in realistic dialogue. He wrote the screenplay for, and the novelization of, Mr. Majestyk (both 1974); Anthony Lane called the latter "the best novel ever written about a melon grower." The stories were often located in Detroit but he also liked to use South Florida as
17280-498: Was regarded as one of the most prestigious publications in the pulp market, along with Blue Book , Adventure and Short Stories . After the transition to slick format it continued to publish fiction, including science fiction by Robert Heinlein , Arthur Clarke , and Ray Bradbury . From 1948 to 1958 it published a series by Gardner called "The Court of Last Resort" which examined the cases of dozens of convicts who maintained their innocence, and succeeding in overturning many of
17415-457: Was replaced by Frederick Clayton, who had been associate editor. In 1936 Clayton was hired by Liberty , and Jack Byrne, who had been working at Fiction House , took over as editor for a year before being replaced by Chandler Whipple. Another Munsey magazine, All-American Fiction , was merged into Argosy in 1938. In 1939 Whipple resigned and George Post, who had been part of Whipple's editorial team, became editor. Argosy remained
17550-592: Was serialized in Argosy in early 1938. Max Brand, though best known for his Westerns, wrote in many other genres as well, including historical fiction and mystery stories. He was the creator of Dr. Kildare , and four novels in the series appeared in Argosy between 1938 and 1940. Mystery contributors included Cornell Woolrich , beginning with "Hot Water" in the December 28, 1935 issue, and Norbert Davis . In 1903 Street & Smith launched The Popular Magazine , an early pulp rival to The Argosy with color art on
17685-539: Was short-lived and folded after only two issues. One of the most successful Western novels in recent times was The Sisters Brothers (2011) by Patrick deWitt . Western authors are represented by the Western Writers of America , who present the annual Spur Awards and Owen Wister Award for Lifetime Achievement. The organization was founded in 1953 to promote the literature of the American West. While
17820-504: Was the Republican candidate for President. Blaine knew of Munsey from Augusta, and his campaign needed help with publicity: Munsey proposed a new magazine, Munsey's Illustrated Weekly , to carry campaign news. It only lasted two months, from September 6 to November 8, 1884, but it helped Munsey by giving him an official-seeming presence in publishing that made it much easier for him to obtain credit for paper and other supplies. Before
17955-455: Was the last one as a weekly. Munsey switched it to monthly publication with the April issue, and circulation jumped to 40,000 immediately, but went no higher for over two years. With the October 1896 issue Munsey changed it to carry fiction only, targeted at adults rather than children. Starting with the December issue he began printing it on cheap wood-pulp paper, making The Argosy
18090-544: Was titled All-Story Combined with Munsey's , and the other continued as Argosy . In 1932 Don Moore , who had become editor in July 1931, bought two stories from Frank Morgan Mercer that turned out to have been copied from earlier stories by H. Bedford-Jones and James Francis Dwyer . Up to this point Argosy paid on acceptance; because of the plagiarism the policy was changed to pay new authors only after publication, to allow plagiarism to be detected. Moore left to work at Cosmopolitan in mid-1934, and
18225-485: Was unable to find enough material to fill an issue. Munsey wrote a short story that night: "Harry's Scheme, or Camping Among the Maples", about two boys in the Maine woods, and turned it in to Douglas the next morning. Douglas twice saw Munsey write a letter to Elverson, offering the subscription list of The Golden Argosy in return for a job at $ 50 per week, but Munsey did not mail either letter. In 1884 James Blaine
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