The All-Story Magazine

The All-Story Magazine was a Munsey pulp. Debuting in January 1905 (the word "Magazine" was dropped from the title in 1908), this pulp was published monthly until March 1914. Effective March 7, 1914, it changed to a weekly schedule and the title All-Story Weekly. In May 1914, All-Story Weekly was merged with another story pulp, The Cavalier, and used the title All-Story Cavalier Weekly for one year. Editors of All-Story included Newell Metcalf and Robert H. Davis.

The All-Story is the magazine that first published Edgar Rice Burroughs, beginning with "Under the Moons of Mars", a serialized novel eventually published in book form as A Princess of Mars, and later The Gods of Mars. Other All-Story writers included Rex Stout, later a famed mystery writer, and mystery writer Mary Roberts Rinehart, Western writers Max Brand and Raymond S. Spears, and horror and fantasy writers Tod Robbins, Abraham Merritt, Perley Poore Sheehan and Charles B. Stilson. All-Story also published poetry. One notable writer who published poems in the All-Story was Djuna Barnes.

The now largely forgotten Eldred Kurtz Means (March 11, 1878 - February 19, 1957) was a constant and prolific contributor to pulp magazines such as All-Story Weekly, Argosy and its predecessors, often featuring blackface minstrel show dialogue.

In 2006, a copy of the October 1912 issue of The All-Story, featuring the first appearance of the character Tarzan in any medium, sold for $59,750 in an auction held by Heritage Auctions of Dallas.

Publication history
In 1882, Frank A. Munsey launched The Golden Argosy, a children's weekly magazine. The title changed to just The Argosy in 1888, and in 1896 Munsey switched to using coarse pulp paper, and printing only fiction, thus launching the first pulp magazine. It was immediately successful. Other publishers brought out competing magazines, such as Street & Smith's The Popular Magazine in 1903, and Story-Press's The Monthly Story Magazine in 1905. As the competition grew, Munsey decided to add another pulp title.

Munsey launched The All-Story Magazine in January 1905 on a monthly schedule with Bob Davis as the editor, and Davis hired Thomas Metcalf to work for him as managing editor. Munsey had hired Davis early in 1904 to work on the New York Sunday News, but that ceased publication in April, and Davis had been fiction editor of Munsey's Magazine since then.

In March 1914 All-Story 's schedule switched to weekly, and in May of that year it was combined with another Munsey pulp, The Cavalier, under the title All-Story Cavalier Weekly. The following year the "Cavalier" was dropped, and it continued as All-Story Weekly again until 1920, when it was merged into The Argosy.

Contents and reception
The first issue included the first instalment of five novels, including W. Bert Foster's When Time Slipped a Cog, about a man who discovers a year of his life has passed that he cannot remember. Two of the short stories were science fiction as well: Howard R. Garis's "The Ghost at Box 13", and Margaret Prescott Montague's "The Great Sleep Tanks". In the May issue Davis reprinted Garrett P. Serviss's short novel The Moon Metal (originally published in book form in 1900), about a new fiscal standard that replaced gold with a metal from the moon. Serviss also appeared in 1909 with A Columbus of Space, serialized in the January to June issues, which science fiction historian Sam Moskowitz commented "caused some to class Serviss as the equal of Jules Verne".

Mary Roberts Rineharts' first story, "A Gasoline Road Agent", appeared in the April 1905 issue.

The most important author discovered by Davis was Edgar Rice Burroughs, whose first sale was Under the Moons of Mars, the first in his Barsoom series. It was serialized from February to July 1912 in The All-Story Magazine. Darkness and Dawn, by George Allan England, had been serialized in another Munsey magazine, The Cavalier, starting in January that year, and science fiction historian Sam Moskowitz regards the appearance of these two stories as signalling the start of an era of popular science-fictional love stories. In October Burroughs' Tarzan of the Apes appeared.

The first issue's cover printed the words "Something New" in a script font on a red background. A picture of two cowboys appeared on the next issue. The third issue took over the cover for a declaration that the magazine had reached 200,000 circulation, but thereafter artwork was used on every cover. Artists included Valentine Sandberg and F. X. Chamberlain.

Bibliographic details
The magazine's title was originally The All-Story Magazine. This was shortened to The All-Story in June 1911, and then changed to All-Story Weekly when it switched from monthly to weekly publication with the March 7, 1914 issue. From May 16, 1914 to May 8, 1915 it was titled All-Story Cavalier Weekly as a result of the merger with The Cavalier, and for the rest of its run, until the July 17, 1920 issue, it was All-Story Weekly again.

In 1929 Munsey's reorganized two of their magazines: Munsey's Monthly became part of a new love story magazine titled All-Story, and Argosy All-Story Weekly became simply Argosy. The new All-Story was soon retitled All-Story Love Stories and continued publication until 1955.