Review: The Railroad Man's Magazine, June 1916

I’ve always wanted to read one of the Munsey-era Railroad Man issues. In its first incarnation it lasted 13 years before Frank Munsey decided to merge it into the Argosy in 1919.  Like most pre-world war 1 magazines, early issues are quite hard to find. So I was happy to get my hands on a scanned copy of the June 1916 issue. Even if you aren’t a fan of railroad fiction, read on. Something may pique your interest.

 

The Railroad Man's Magazine, June 1916

Frank A. Munsey - An annotated bibliography

Frank A. Munsey was a publisher to be reckoned with. The creator of the pulp all-fiction cheap magazine for the masses, he built his publishing business into a mighty conglomerate with businesses in groceries, real estate, banking and publishing. On his death, he left his fortune to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

Wanting to learn about him, I started reading one book and hoping to review it - Forty years, forty millions, a biography of Munsey by a newspaper man. I enjoyed it but wanted to verify some of the facts for myself. Searching around, I found a number of articles on and by Munsey and here we are. Tell me of any sources i may have missed in the comments section (you don't need a Google account to comment).

Frank A. Munsey

Isabel Ostrander - Author

Isabel Ostrander was a prolific writer in the early twentieth century, contributing more than thirty serials using three pseudonyms, and perhaps more under other names, to the Munsey and Street and Smith pulps in little over a decade before her untimely death. Many of these serials were later reprinted as novels, some with changed titles.

Her inclusion in this series of articles is due to her creation of Damon Gaunt, the second blind detective to feature in American fiction. The first was Thornley Colton, created by Clinton H. Stagg. Damon Gaunt is however, closer to the British school of detective fiction epitomized by Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot. How? We’ll see later.

Isabel Ostrander c. 1907

The history of the Argosy magazine - article by William DeWart, publisher of the Argosy magazine

[This article on the history of the Argosy was published in the December 10, 1932 issue of the Argosy. The occasion was the fiftieth anniversary of the magazine. The author is William DeWart, the owner and publisher of the Argosy. On the occasion of the one hundred and thirtieth anniversary of its beginning, here is the article. After the break.]