Given the state of some of the pulps I’ve seen (and bought), I shouldn’t be surprised at just how many people read the pulps. And how badly they treated them.
But this has to be the record for a single issue.
I believe I can say that the magazine I buy is read by more people than any copy of any other magazine of any type. Immediately after reading it I mail it to a friend who is in a T. B. sanitarium. He tells me there are 800 patients there and that 799 of them read that copy.
From the collections of Oregon Health & Science University
Before you read on, try to guess which title it might be.
Read moreThe source is this ad for Black Mask in its sister magazine, Field and Stream. What i want to know is who’s that one patient out there that isn’t reading this?
Did you ever hear of anything similar? Some pulps were shipped overseas to army men and I guess a pulp on a ship would receive the same treatment. Did any other title come close or beat this?
PS: This might also explain why those 1929 issues of Black Mask are so hard to find.
If a pulp has been in a T.B. ward, I don’t think I want to have it in my collection. Not even if it’s a BLACK MASK!
How can you tell, though? Unless they stamped it.
One of my favorite novels is THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN by Thomas Mann. It takes place mainly in a TB ward. Another favorite is the Somerset Maugham novelet that has two people falling in love in a TB ward and marrying even though one of them only has a short time to live.
Since there is not much to do in such wards, reading material is very much in demand but I don’t recall any pulps being mentioned.
Too lowbrow for a Thomas Mann novel, maybe?
Pretty high percentage of patients. I am a bit skeptical that 100% of the patients were literate in that era. It wouldn’t be uncommon for some patients to have had a limited education.