Tales of Wonder (magazine)
Tales of Wonder was the first professional British science fiction magazine. It was published from 1937-1942 and was edited by Water Gillings. Although it was preceded in 1934-1945 by Scoops, that was more of a boy's newspaper than a magazine.
Publication history
The first U.S. science fiction (sf) magazine, Amazing Stories, was imported into the U.K. from its launch in 1926, and other magazines from the U.S. market were also available in the U.K. from an early date. However, no British sf magazine was launched until 1934, when Pearsons launched Scoops, a weekly in tabloid format aimed at the juvenile market. Soon Haydn Dimmock, Scoops editor, began to receive more sophisticated stories, targeted at an adult audience; he tried to change the magazine's focus to include more mature fiction but within twenty issues falling sales led Pearson's to kill the magazine. The failure of Scoops gave British publishers the impression that Britain could not support a science fiction publication.[1]
Despite this failure, Walter Gillings, a British science fiction reader who had been active in fan circles since the early 1930s, decided to try to launch a British sf pulp. He initially approached George Newnes, Ltd, the publisher of The Strand Magazine, about starting a new sf pulp. Newnes had taken some steps towards publishing a science fiction magazine, but eventually shelved the idea.[1] Gillings' was more successful with The World's Work, a subsidiary of William Heinemann, who were already publishing titles such as Tales of Mystery and Detection and Tales of the Uncanny, as part of their Master Thriller series. A single issue of Tales of Wonder appeared in June 1937, with Gillings as editor, to test the market. Sales were good enough for The World's Work to continue publication,and from Spring 1938 the magazine appeared on a quarterly schedule, with occasional omissions. None of the other titles in the Master Thriller series ever turned into a separate magazine, so it was evidently selling well.[1][2]The success of Tales of Wonder led Newnes to believe that they had been wrong to turn down Gillings, and in 1938 they launched Fantasy as a competitor.[1]
The outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 did not immediately lead to paper shortages, but paper began to be rationed in April 1940, and the page count, which had already dropped from 128 to 96, fell to 72 by 1941. The magazine eventually ceased publication with the Spring 1942 issue.[1]
Contents and reception
e.
|
Winter |
Spring |
Summer |
Autumn |
Winter | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
1937 |
1 | ||||
|
1938 |
2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | |
|
1939 |
6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | |
|
1940 |
10 | 11 | 12 | ||
|
1941 |
13 | 14 | 15 | ||
|
1942 |
16 | ||||
| Issues of Tales of Wonder, showing issue number.
Walter Gillings was editor throughout.[3] | |||||
TalAmerican science fiction magazines had by the mid-1930s begun to publish some more sophisticated stories than the straightforward adventure fiction that was a staple of the earliest years of the genre. Gillings decided that the British market for science fiction would not be familiar with most of the developments in American sf, and so he did not make a point of seeking innovative and original material. The first issue contained "The Perfect Creature", an early story by John Wyndham, under the name "John Beynon", as well as "The Prr-r-eet", by Eric Frank Russell. The second issue included Wyndham's novel Sleepers of Mars, and William F. Temple's "Lunar Lilliput", which was Temple's first science fiction sale. "Stenographer's Hands", a story by David H. Keller, also appeared in the second issue, reprinted from a U.S. magazine; Gillings claimed that this was to introduce British science fiction readers to American developments in sf, but in fact it was because he was having trouble obtaining good quality material from British writers.[1][2]
The most significant writer introduced by Gillings was undoubtedly Arthur C. Clarke, whose first sales were to Gillings, for the science articles "Man's Empire of Tomorrow" and "We Can Rocket to the Moon—Now!", which were published in the Winter 1938 and Summer 1939 issues.[2]
Bibliographic details
Test sentences of Wonder was published in pulp format for all 16 issues. It began at 128 pages; this was cut to 96 pages with the Winter 1939 issue; then to 80 pages with the Autumn 1940 issue; and finally to 72 pages for the last three issues. It was edited throughout by Walter Gillings, and was priced at 1/-. There was no volume numbering; each issue was numbered consecutively.[2]
References
- Ashley, Mike (2000). The Time Machines:The Story of the Science-Fiction Pulp Magazines from the beginning to 1950. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. ISBN 0-85323-865-0.
- Tymn, Marshall B.; Ashley, Mike (1985). Science Fiction, Fantasy and Weird Fiction Magazines. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-21221-X.