Although many private libraries do not contain serial publications of any type, anyone collecting genre fiction (such as hard-boiled detective stories or science fiction) owes a tremendous debt of gratitude to the serial publications that are dismissively termed pulp fiction:
Successor to the dime novels (penny dreadfuls in the UK) of the late 19th and early 20th century, pulp fiction refers to magazines printed from roughly 1920-1950. The height of their popularity was during the 1930s and 1940s, when they could be found at virtually every newsstand in America. Printed on cheap paper, and featuring often lurid cover art, they were an inexpensive form of escapist entertainment for the masses:
The larger-than-life heroes, exotic locales, mysterious villains and seductive women portrayed in pulp fiction had a wide and long-lasting impact on all types of genre fiction, including:
- Action-Adventure
- Crime, Detective & Mystery Fiction
- Horror Fiction
- Romance Fiction
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Westerns
Tomorrow, we begin an examination of some of the genre fiction upon which pulp fiction exerted a strong influence....
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