Pulp magazines, often called simply "pulps", were cheap, often sensationalistic and/or exploitative text fiction magazines widely published in the 1930s - 1950s. The first "pulp" is considered to be Frank Munsey's revamped Argosy of 1893. Most of the few pulps still thriving today are science fiction or mystery magazines.
The name comes from the cheap woodpulp paper on which they were printed. Pulps were the successor to the "penny dreadfuls" and "dime novels" of the nineteenth century.
Pulp magazines can be categorized into the following genres:
- Detective/Mystery
- Romance
- Science Fiction
- True Crime
- Western
- Character (the precursor to the superhero fantasy genre)
- The Avenger
- Biggles
- G-8
- Doc Savage
- Sexton Blake
- The Shadow
- The Spider
- Tarzan
- Zorro
Well-known authors who wrote for the pulps include:
- Poul Anderson
- Isaac Asimov
- Robert Bloch
- Ray Bradbury
- Edgar Rice Burroughs
- Raymond Chandler
- Arthur C. Clarke
- Philip K. Dick
- Erle Stanley Gardner
- Robert Heinlein
- Frank Herbert
- Robert E. Howard
- H. P. Lovecraft
- Johnston McCulley
- Seabury Quinn
- Richard S. Shaver
- Clark Ashton Smith
The format eventually declined with rising paper costs, competition from comic books, television and the paperback novel.
The genre also gave name to the movie Pulp Fiction.