Born on April 1, 1875, Edgar Wallace wrote more than 170 novels, 957 short stories, 18 stage plays, screenplays, historical non-fiction, ballads, and poetry. At least 160 films were adapted from his work, including Hound of the Baskervilles and the RKO classic, King Kong.
Incredibly prolific, it has been estimated that more than 50 million copies of Wallace’s books sold during his lifetime. By 1990, the head of the Edgar Wallace Society estimated that sales of the author’s work had exceeded 200 million. His books have been translated into more than twenty languages.
Called the “King of Thrillers,” Wallace’s stories were regularly featured in The Grand Magazine, The Novel Magazine, The Royal Magazine, The Story-Teller, The Strand Magazine, The Weekly Tale-Teller, The Windsor Magazine, and other publications in Great Britain.
His American publishers included Adventure, Argosy All-Story Weekly, Everybody’s Magazine, The Popular Magazine, Short Stories, Street & Smith’s Detective Story Magazine, and Flynn’s (which later became Detective Fiction Weekly).
While Street & Smith Publications regularly featured holiday covers — particularly around Christmas or New Year’s Day — Frank Munsey’s Red Star News Company rarely resorted to seasonal covers. The December 24, 1932 number — depicted above — is one of the few holiday covers found on Detective Fiction Weekly.
From decapitated police officers to knife-yielding tongmen and gangsters armed with Tommy guns, the covers for the Munsey detective pulp generally reflected a story included in the issue. Even Lejaren Hiller’s Santa Claus cover reflects Lieut. John Hopper’s novelette, “Big City Christmas,” rather than the Christmas holiday in general.
About a year after establishing Detective Story Magazine — the first specialized pulp fiction magazine — Street & Smith began to include a Christmas story or two around the winter holidays. With its December 23, 1919 issue, the company began advertising, “Sparkling Christmas Stories,” above the Detective Story masthead.
The publisher featured similar advertising and cover art on many of their other specialty pulps, including Love Story Magazine, Western Story Magazine, and Wild West Weekly. Even Sport Story Magazine occasionally featured a “Christmas Number.”
Regardless of how the Scrooges in Frank Munsey’s circulation department felt about Christmas, your friends from the PulpFest organizing committee — Mike Chomko, Jack and Sally Cullers, Bill Lampkin, Craig McDonald, and Barry Traylor — would like to wish everyone a healthy and happy holiday season. We’ll be back one week from today, as we enjoy some time off with our families.
Beginning with the pulp’s first issue — dated October 5, 1915 — John A. Coughlin painted almost every cover for Street & Smith’s Detective Story Magazine over the next twenty years. Our featured image is excerpted from the December 22, 1928 number of the magazine, while our final image is the cover for the December 25, 1920 issue.
For some more holiday spirit, hop into your sleigh and fly over to the PulpFest YouTube Channel for Craig McDonald’s latest video — PulpFest Wishes You A Merry 2024 Christmas!
And while you’re there, gift yourself a free subscription to catch all of our upcoming films.
Detective fiction fan Pete Collins joined our staff in September 2024. That month, he contributed an overview of Detective Fiction Weekly to salute the magazine’s centennial. We look forward to Pete’s contributions to our website. Thanks for the Christmas story, Pete.
