Sam Moskowitz (ed), page 46
The audience of THE OCEAN proved too limited, so it was discontinued with the January, 1908, number and resumed as THE LIVE WIRE with the February issue. THE LIVE WIRE was a fabulous pulp. Like all the others, 192 pages for ten cents, it undoubtedly was the first pulp magazine and maybe the only one to run all illustrations, one hundred fifty or more of them in each issue, in two colors. Frank A. Munsey had bought some new two-color presses and was using THE LIVE WIRE as an experimental publication, and it was a joy to thumb through page after page of articles, stories, poems, and cartoons, all illustrated profusely, all well drawn, and all with a second color. The contents were very similar to those of the early issues of THE SCRAP BOOK.
The eight issues of THE LIVE WIRE contained a number of tales of science fiction. The Great Scourge of the World, by H. A. and G. A. Thompson (May, 1908), told of the attempts by a scientist to specifically destroy the poverty-stricken and miserable of the world with a direct-contact gas spray that produced the effects of the Black Plague, but whose effects were non-contagious. The Great Baseball Brainstorm of 2002 (June, 1908), by B. Bulger, is one of the earlier if not the earliest sports story of the far future. The Burning Image, by Crittendon Marriott, which began in the July, 1908, number, was a six-part novel which begins as a cloak-and-dagger murder mystery and ends in a confrontation with a fantastic Mayan god. Marriott was an important early mystery-story writer who occasionally dabbled in science fiction.
THE SCRAP BOOK had been a split personality, and its conversion back to a single monthly magazine was equally schizophrenic. The title of the fiction section was changed to THE CAVALIER, which began life with the October, 1908, issue. Five uncompleted serials from THE SCRAP BOOK were resumed by THE CAVALIER, which at first ran on book paper, 192 pages for ten cents. The boost in a carryover in readers who are hung up on five serials was its initial sales impetus.
The nonfiction section of THE SCRAP BOOK incorporated THE LIVE WIRE with its October, 1908, issue, carrying on that magazine’s uncompleted serials. The tasteful covers were back, the fiction was back, and so were the scores of odds and ends that had previously been an integral part of the magazine. Additionally, all the illustrations in Tm: SC RAP
BOOK now appeared in two and three colors, which showed up dramatically on the book-paper stock used.
THE SCRAP BOOK had used a limited amount of science fiction and supernatural tales previously, including reprints of Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce, Washington Irving, E. Bulwer-Lytton, Daniel Defoe, and an excerpt of Frankenstein’s Monster (February, 1907) from Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s famous novel. The most interesting of the new stories were The Human Brick, by Mark C. Francis (October, 1907), where the ashes of a cremated man are made into a brick and he retains consciousness after becoming part of an apartment house; When Science Warred, by Julian Johnson (November, 1907), in which an old French scientist permits plague germs to enter a gale heading toward Germany, to forestall an invasion by that nation; The Avatar, by Harvey J. O’Higgins, which finds a student with a head injury suffering lapses in which he writes manuscripts in Monk Latin; and The Thing Behind the Curtain, by Charles Stephens (May—July, 1908), relating the invention of a machine for transmitting and receiving thought waves with an intensity so effective it can temporarily activate cadavers.
The year 1909 saw THE SCRAP BOOK place greater emphasis on science fiction, with several important authors making novel-length contributions. Editor Sheehan had paid Garrett P. Serviss four hundred dollars for his sixty-five thousand word novel of an air-buccaneer operation in the year 1936 titled The Sky Pirate. Compared to The Columbus of Space, which was still running in THE ALL-STORY MAGAZINE, The Sky Pirate (April-September, 1909) showed a paucity of imagination, with a girl kidnapped by air, and running battles between planes not capable of doing over one hundred forty miles per hour. The actual writing was smooth, and the story was easy to read, though it would never be reprinted.
Serviss’ serial was followed by George Allan England’s first long scicnce-fiction tale, The House of Transformation (September-November,
, dealing with the use of extensive and advanced surgery to turn a gorilla into a man.
With the July, 1909, issue, THE SCRAP BOOK had dropped its family-type cover and gone back to straight title and the blazoning of the feature story, with at best a tiny line cut. During 1910, in size and advertising it gave the outward appearance of prosperity and success, but by 1911, it switched back to pulp paper and not only dropped interior illustrations in color but also dropped all art. Though the quality of the stories and articles remained good, there was less variety. Outstanding during this last year of its regular publication was Monsieur De Guise, (January, 1911), by the magazine’s editor, Perley Poore Sheehan, a masterfully poignant ghost story of a great Southern mansion on an island in a cedar swamp, and an old man who sits in luxurious splendid isolation and recalls the spirit of his dead wife to sing for a guest a sweet love song in French. George Allan England’s The Man with the Glass Heart (May, 1911) was a brilliant anticipation of today’s surgical experiments, written with considerable skill.
THE ADVENT OF “THE CAVALIER”
THE CAVALIER started from Volume 1, Number 1 in its October,
issue, even though it carried THE SCRAP BOOK’S serials. Editorship had been turned over to Robert H. Davis. The first few issues continued the fine book paper, but it was changed to pulp in 1909. The tastefully handsome covers, patterned after THE ALL-STORY MAGAZINE and THE POPULAR MAGAZINE, were carried into 1910. The stories were unillustrated.
No time was lost in presenting science fiction, World Wreckers, by Frank Lillie Pollock, appearing in the November, 1908, issue. A short novel of a scientist who invents a method of manufacturing gold and is kidnapped by a group who work to use the metal to take over the world, it is easy to read. The preoccupation of writers of the turn of the century in dealing with the possibility of the conversion of baser metals to gold is so intensive that a fourth-year thesis by a sociology major on the theme might prove illuminating.
Following the lead of THE POPULAR MAGAZINE almost four years earlier, THE CAVALIER secured first American rights to a novel by H. Rider Haggard. THE CAVALIER badly needed a circulation winner. It was a good magazine, but by 1910 there were a lot of good magazines, and more being added.
THE POPULAR MAGAZINE had gone twice a month for a three-month experimental period with its October, 1909, issue. It was the same as adding another potent competitor. THE POPULAR MAGAZINE was edging close to four hundred thousand monthly circulation. It was the biggest pulp magazine on the stands, with 224 pages, and if the readers could be trained to buy two issues a month there were bound to be tens of thousands who had bought a second or third magazine who would drop it for the additional issue of THE POPULAR MAGAZINE. These implications boded no good for the supremacy of THE ARGOSY, which had reached a peak of over five hundred thousand copies monthly in 1907 and had begun to decline under the press of competition. The big selling point that THE ARGOSY had was its five to seven serials. THE POPULAR MAGAZINE as a semimonthly would negate that factor. It had long been publishing a complete 50,000-to-70,000-word novel every issue. Now its readers would have to wait only half the usual time between installments of its serials.
Since June, 1890, a monthly magazine, SHORT STORIES, had engaged a select clientele, translating stories from other languages and reprinting old classics. It had always published many new stories, but in recent years was greatly increasing the ratio. Doubleday purchased the magazine in 1910 and converted it into a 160-page pulp in direct competition to the other adventure magazines in the field. SHORT STORIES had never printed a great deal of science fiction, but it did run some. It reprinted The Purple Pileus, by H. G. Wells, in its issue of March, 1908, telling of a harried, henpecked man who eats a fungus which changes his entire character and life. October of the same year saw a new story, The Gyroscope, by Percival Landon, of a mammoth gyroscope that goes awry and creates havoc. Its editor, Harry Peyton Steger, was regarded by Bob Davis as one of the magazine field’s finest. He died in 1912 and his seat was taken by Harry Maul, who converted the publication into a man’s adventure magazine.
Against existing and new competition, THE CAVALIER was having great difficulty getting its circulation above seventy-five thousand. The question was, could H. Rider Haggard do for it what he had done for THE POPULAR MAGAZINE?
When purchasing Ayesha for publication in 1905, THE POPULAR MAGAZINE had implied that they had to outbid several other publications to get it. THE CAVALIER’S price for the ninety thousand-word Morning Star, which they ran as an eight-part serial (November, 1909-June,
, seems quite moderate. It was purchased from Haggard’s London agent, A. P. Watt Son, on September 15, 1909, for eight hundred dollars, or less than one cent per word. THE CAVALIER bought first American serial rights only, United Kingdom serial rights going to THE CHRISTIAN WORLD NEWS OF THE WEEK, who published it in twenty-one installments, October 21, 1909-March 10, 1910.
THE CAVALIER rushed the novel into print almost instantly, probably because the American hardcover edition from Longmans, Green Co., New York, was scheduled for May 27, 1910. Undoubtedly, for this reason, there was no lead time for fanfare, no special covers or promotions. The novel was included as would be any other novel. During the period of its appearance it was the policy of THE CAVALIER not to run story titles on the cover.
Morning Star, as a favorite of Haggard fans, is an excellent story of action and intrigue set against the background of ancient Egypt. A princess of Egypt, raised by Asti, a woman with magical powers, does not want to marry the Pharaoh. The Egyptians believed that everyone had a spiritual double, which they called a Ka, which could take that person’s form but was capable of living without a body. The Ka of the Egyptian princess marries the Pharaoh for her and does him in. In the process, the princess is rescued from the Nile by a ship rowed by ghosts, and they are aided by the wondrous harp of Kepher, god of the desert people. It sounds like an unlikely grab bag, but it is told well.
There was virtually no effect upon the magazine’s circulation as a result of the Haggard novel. The story had not been “merchandised.”
An unusual fact about a short science-fiction novel that appeared in the January, 1910, issue of THE CAVALIER has never been called to the attention of the reading public. That novel, The Wizard of the Peak, by Thomas E. Grant, of Estes Park, Colorado, was almost a paragraph-by-paragraph, character-by-character paraphrase of Garrett P. Serviss’ The Moon Metal. The Wizard of the Peak is built around the situation of the world running out of coal and all industry collapsing as a result, to be temporarily saved by a mad scientist who can extract power from the air. He holds the world in his thrall until his secret is duplicated, then disappears, to be seen again and again in the vicinity of his power plants in different parts of the world. The last scene is a confrontation with the young scientist who upended him; the madman literally fades away into the air; there follows a great explosion of one of his plants, resulting in his image being permanently engraved on the side of the mountain.
Since THE ALL-STORY MAGAZINE had reprinted The Moon Metal as recently as 1905, it is strange that it wasn’t spotted by the editors, though it undoubtedly was later called to their attention by the readers. At that time there were no readers’ departments, so no record of the reaction was made in print. It was the only story by Grant published by a Munsey magazine, and they paid him 175 dollars for it.
Throughout 1910 and most of 1911, THE CAVALIER indulged itself in a series of “humorous” science fiction about impractical inventors whose ideas backfire. Edgar Franklin was present with his Hawkins stories, possibly the longest series ever to run in science fiction. They were popular at first, and then after scores of episodes, hooted and reviled by Munsey readers. Burke Jenkins wrote a series of his own for THE CAVALIER, about Mr. Wimple, who invents a “woundless rifle,” a fog piercer, a wonder plant that grows instant mangoes, and a method for slowing down the frantic pace of “modern” 1910 life. There were numerous humorous “solos” by others, but with acute circulation trouble, the magazine needed something calculated to bring in more customers than these slapstick shorts were capable of attracting.
All of Munsey’s magazines were experiencing serious declines in circulation. THE ARGOSY had dropped below four hundred thousand copies and would eventually fall to three hundred thousand. THE ALL-STORY MAGAZINE, from a peak of three hundred thousand, was down to close to two hundred thousand and would drop another twenty-five thousand. THE CAVALIER had never seen one hundred thousand and through most of its life would never go much over seventy-five thousand. Even the big-time slick, MUNSEY’S MAGAZINE itself, from a height of seven hundred thousand was down close to four hundred thousand.
In June, 1911, Munsey ordered the “class” covers taken off THE CAVALIER and colorful pulp action substituted in their place. The stories were all to be illustrated inside the magazine, with the title lettering drawn by the artists. The next month, THE ALL-STORY MAGAZINE and THE ARGOSY received the same treatment, both on covers and inside illustrations.
The interiors were particularly graphic and greatly enhanced the magazines. With the changed covers, the loud, familiar style of art that would become the trademark of the pulps for the next forty years emerged full-blown.
THE CAVALIER, which had the lowest circulation (even below that of specialized THE RAILROAD MAN’S MAGAZINE), was given the standard Munsey remedy (or was it actually the Bob Davis cure?), consisting of lavishly stepping up the quantity and quality of science fiction in its pages.
The most promising science-fiction writer on the American scene was the journalist-astronomer Garrett Putnam Serviss. Born at Sharon Springs, New York, March 24, 1851. Serviss’ first love was astronomy, and he spent four years at Cornell majoring in science, graduating in 1872. Another two years at law was taken at Columbia College Law School, which he left in June, 1884, and he was admitted to the bar the same month.
His heart was in journalism, for he went to work as a reporter on THE NEW YORK TRIBUNE. Then he shifted to THE NEW YORK SUN, where he spent ten years as night editor. He worked for Charles Dana, who liked his articles on astronomy, featuring them on the editorial page. Talks he delivered on astronomy proved so popular that he resigned from THE NEW YORK SUN and made a living at lecturing and freelance writing.
To capitalize on the sensation created by the serialization of H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds in COSMOPOLITAN in 1897, which was syndicated by two newspapers in the United States, Serviss accepted a commission to write a sequel. The result was Edison’s Conquest of Mars, which ran early in 1898 in those same newspapers that had published
The War of the Worlds. Hastily written, but impressively imaginative, Serviss’ effort had Thomas Alva Edison gather the great minds of the world about him, build a space ship armed with a distintegrator ray, and journey to Mars to inflict upon its evil denizens a defeat which resulted in the destruction of their ancient civilization.
Though the bulk of his work was in popular science features, he went on to write and syndicate The Moon Metal, which enjoyed a good sale in book form and was reprinted in THE ALL-STORY MAGAZINE. Following this with The Columbus of Space, he became an important figure in science fiction. THE SCRAP BOOK, having published The Sky Pirates, was receptive to anything new he had to offer. He sent them a novel which was to prove his masterpiece, The Second Deluge. He was mailed on April 14, 1911, a check for seven hundred and fifty dollars in payment for the novel, approximately seventy-five thousand words long. His residence was then 8 Middagh Street, Brooklyn, New York.
Though purchased by THE SCRAP BOOK, The Second Deluge never appeared in that magazine. Readers of THE SCRAP BOOK during 1910 and 1911, finding 120 or more pages of advertising per issue, understandably might have concluded that here was one of the most successful of magazines. They were not aware that all the advertisements sold to MUNSEY’S MAGAZINE were repeated free of charge in THE SCRAP BOOK. In part this was to offset the sliding circulation of MUNSEY’S MAGAZINE, and in part it was to make THE SCRAP BOOK look like a tremendously thick bargain for ten cents, and thereby help to sustain it.
The SCRAP BOOK was scheduled to be combined with THE CAVALIER beginning with the issue of January, 1912. The new title would be THE CAVALIER AND THE SCRAP BOOK, with nothing but the fiction being carried over. The original concept of THE SCRAP BOOK would be discarded.
The cover of the July, 1911, issue of THE CAVALIER illustrated The Second Deluge, and the novel was unquestionably the greatest single tale of science fiction published by the Munsey magazines up to that time, and the finest story on the theme of Noah and the Ark in a modern tense. The story involves the discovery by a scientist, Cosmo Versal, that within a year the earth will pass through a small nebula composed of water and that the condensation will leave a residual layer of liquid six miles deep around the earth. He builds a gigantic ark, in which he duplicates Noah’s feat of accommodating males and females of all manner of creatures on the face of the globe.
The deluge arrives as predicted, and the ark sets sail. The description of the world catastrophe is superb, and the handling of the interplay of human personalities is a totally unexpected “plus” for so early a period in science fiction. Added to that was the fecundity of intriguing situations the author was able to derive from the central catastrophe. Serviss’ chief inspirator was Jules Verne. He had dedicated his book The Columbus of Space to that pioneer science-fiction writer, and in The Second Deluge the ark meets with a French submarine appropriately named the Jules Verne.
