Unknown (magazine)
Template:Short description Template:Redirect Template:Featured article Template:Infobox magazine Unknown (also known as Unknown Worlds) was an American pulp fantasy fiction magazine, published from 1939 to 1943 by Street & Smith, and edited by John W. Campbell. Unknown was a companion to Street & Smith's science fiction pulp, Astounding Science Fiction, which was also edited by Campbell at the time; many authors and illustrators contributed to both magazines. The leading fantasy magazine in the 1930s was Weird Tales, which focused on shock and horror. Campbell wanted to publish a fantasy magazine with more finesse and humor than Weird Tales, and put his plans into action when Eric Frank Russell sent him the manuscript of his novel Sinister Barrier, about aliens who own the human race. UnknownTemplate:'s first issue appeared in March 1939; in addition to Sinister Barrier, it included H. L. Gold's "Trouble With Water", a humorous fantasy about a New Yorker who meets a water gnome. Gold's story was the first of many in Unknown to combine commonplace reality with the fantastic.
Campbell required his authors to avoid simplistic horror fiction and insisted that the fantasy elements in a story be developed logically: for example, Jack Williamson's Darker Than You Think describes a world in which there is a scientific explanation for the existence of werewolves. Similarly, L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt's Harold Shea series, about a modern American who finds himself in the worlds of various mythologies, depicts a system of magic based on mathematical logic. Other notable works included several novels by L. Ron Hubbard and short stories such as Manly Wade Wellman's "When It Was Moonlight" and Fritz Leiber's "Two Sought Adventure", the first in his Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series.
Unknown was forced to a bimonthly schedule in 1941 by poor sales and canceled in 1943 when wartime paper shortages became so acute that Campbell had to choose between turning Astounding into a bimonthly or ending Unknown. The magazine is generally regarded as the finest fantasy fiction magazine ever published, despite the fact that it was not commercially successful, and in the opinion of science fiction historian Mike Ashley it was responsible for the creation of the modern fantasy publishing genre.
Background and publication historyEdit
| Year | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1939 | 1/1 | 1/2 | 1/3 | 1/4 | 1/5 | 1/6 | 2/1 | 2/2 | 2/3 | 2/4 | ||
| 1940 | 2/5 | 2/6 | 3/1 | 3/2 | 3/3 | 3/4 | 3/5 | 3/6 | 4/1 | 4/2 | 4/3 | 4/4 |
| 1941 | 4/5 | 4/6 | 5/1 | 5/2 | 5/3 | 5/4 | ||||||
| 1942 | 5/5 | 5/6 | 6/1 | 6/2 | 6/3 | 6/4 | ||||||
| 1943 | 6/5 | 6/6 | 7/1 | 7/2 | 7/3 | |||||||
| John W. Campbell was editor throughout.<ref name=Tuck_U>"Unknown Worlds", in Tuck, Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Vol. 3, pp. 582–583.</ref> | ||||||||||||
In May 1923, the first issue of Weird Tales appeared, from Rural Publications in Chicago. Weird Tales was a pulp magazine that specialized in fantasy stories and material that no other magazine would accept. It was not initially successful, but by the 1930s had established itself and was regularly publishing science fiction (SF) as well as fantasy.<ref name=SFFWFM_WT>Robert Weinberg, "Weird Tales", in Tymn & Ashley, Science Fiction, Fantasy and Weird Fiction Magazines, pp. 727–736.</ref> Weird Tales was the first magazine to focus solely on fantasy, and it remained the pre-eminent magazine in this field for over a decade.<ref name=TTM_41>Ashley, Time Machines, p. 41.</ref><ref name=TTM_140/> In the meantime, science fiction was starting to form a separately marketed genre, with the appearance in 1926 of Amazing Stories, a pulp magazine edited by Hugo Gernsback. In 1930 pulp publisher Clayton Publications launched Astounding Stories of Super Science,<ref name=TTM_69>Ashley, Time Machines, p. 69.</ref> but the company's bankruptcy in 1933 led to the acquisition of the magazine by Street & Smith.<ref name=TTM_82>Ashley, Time Machines, p. 82.</ref> The title was shortened to Astounding Stories, and it became the leading magazine in the science fiction field over the next few years under the editorship of F. Orlin Tremaine.<ref name=TTM_84-5>Ashley, Time Machines, pp. 84–85.</ref><ref name=SFFWFM_ASF>Albert I. Berger & Mike Ashley, "Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact", in Tymn & Ashley, Science Fiction, Fantasy and Weird Fiction Magazines, pp. 60–103.</ref> At the end of 1937, John W. Campbell took over as editor.<ref name=SFFWFM_ASF/>
By 1938, Campbell was planning a fantasy companion to Astounding:<ref name=SFFWFM_U/> Weird Tales was still the leader in the fantasy genre, though competitors such as Strange Stories were also being launched.<ref name=TTM_140/> Campbell began acquiring stories suitable for the new magazine, without a definite launch date in mind. When Eric Frank Russell sent him the manuscript of his novel Sinister Barrier, Campbell decided it was time to put his plans into action. The first issue of Unknown appeared in March 1939. It was a monthly at first, but poor sales forced a switch to a bimonthly schedule beginning in February 1941.<ref name=SFFWFM_U>Thomas D. Clareson, "Unknown", in Tymn & Ashley, Science Fiction, Fantasy and Weird Fiction Magazines, pp. 694–699.</ref><ref name=IMYG_390>Asimov, In Memory Yet Green, p. 390.</ref> In December 1940, the subtitle Fantasy Fiction was added, and in October 1941, the main title was changed to Unknown Worlds;<ref name=SFFWFM_U/> both changes were intended to make the genre of the magazine clearer to potential readers.<ref name=Kyle>Kyle, Pictorial History of Science Fiction, p. 109.</ref> When wartime paper shortages became severe in late 1943, Campbell chose to keep Astounding monthly and cancel Unknown, rather than switch the former to a bimonthly schedule as well. The last issue was dated October 1943.<ref name="SFFWFM_U"/><ref name="IMYG_390"/>
Contents and receptionEdit
Campbell's plans for Unknown were laid out in the February 1939 issue of Astounding, in the announcement of the new magazine. He argued that "it has been the quality of the fantasy that you have read in the past that has made the very word anathema ... [Unknown] will offer fantasy of a quality so far different from that which has appeared in the past as to change your entire understanding of the term".<ref name=SFFWFM_U/> The first issue, the following month, led with Russell's Sinister Barrier,Template:Refn the novel that had persuaded Campbell to set his plans for a fantasy magazine into motion: the plot, involving aliens who own the human race,<ref name=SFFWFM_U/> has been described by SF historian Mike Ashley as "a strange mixture of science fiction and occult fantasy".<ref name=TTM_140>Ashley, Time Machines, pp. 140–141.</ref> Campbell asked Russell for revisions to the story to emphasize the fantastic elements but still demanded that Russell work out the logical implications of his premises. This became a defining characteristic of the fiction published in Unknown; in Ashley's words, Campbell "brought the science fiction rationale to fantasy".<ref name=TTM_140/> The first issue also contained Horace L. Gold's "Trouble with Water", a comic fantasy about a modern New Yorker who offends a water gnome; in its whimsicality and naturalistic merging of a modern background with a classic fantasy trope, "Trouble with Water" was a better indication than Sinister Barrier of the direction Unknown would take.<ref name=ESF_U/> Campbell commented in a letter at the time that Sinister Barrier, "Trouble with Water", and Template:" 'Where Angels Fear ...Template:' " by Manly Wade Wellman were the only stories in the first issue that accurately reflected his goals for the magazine.<ref name=TJWCL_44>Chapdelaine, John W. Campbell Letters, p. 44.</ref>Template:Refn
Under Campbell's editorial supervision, the fantasy element in Unknown stories had to be treated rigorously.<ref name=ESF_U/> This naturally led to the appearance in Unknown of writers already comfortable with similar rigor in science fiction stories, and Campbell soon established a small group of writers as regular contributors, many of whom were also appearing in the pages of Astounding.<ref name=ESF_U/> L. Ron Hubbard, Theodore Sturgeon, and L. Sprague de Camp were among the most prolific.<ref name=SFFWFM_U/><ref name=ESF_U/> Hubbard contributed eight lead novels including Typewriter in the Sky, Slaves of Sleep, and Fear, described by Ashley as a "classic psychological thriller";<ref name=ESF_U/> SF historian and critic Thomas Clareson describes all eight as "outstanding".<ref name=SFFWFM_U/> De Camp, in collaboration with Fletcher Pratt, contributed three stories featuring Harold Shea, who finds himself in a world where magic operates by rigorous rules.<ref name=SFFWFM_U/><ref name=EF_U>Mike Ashley, Unknown, in Clute & Grant, Encyclopedia of Fantasy, p. 974.</ref> The title of one of these, "The Mathematics of Magic", is, according to SF critic John Clute, "perfectly expressive of the terms under which magic found easy mention in Unknown".<ref name=EF_LSDC>John Clute, "Lyon Sprague de Camp", in Clute & Grant, Encyclopedia of Fantasy, pp. 257–258.</ref>
Other Astounding writers who wrote for Unknown included Robert A. Heinlein, whose "The Devil Makes the Law" (reprinted as "Magic, Inc.") depicts a world where magic is a part of everyday life.<ref name=ESF_U/> Heinlein also contributed "The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag" and "They", described by Ashley as "perhaps the ultimate solipsist fantasy".<ref name=ESF_RAH>Mike Ashley, "Robert A. Heinlein", in Clute & Grant, Encyclopedia of Fantasy, p. 406.</ref> A.E. van Vogt, a frequent Astounding contributor, appeared in the final issue with "The Book of Ptath" (later expanded into a novel).<ref name=ESF_U/><ref name=issues/> Isaac Asimov, despite multiple attempts to write for Unknown, never appeared in the magazine. On his sixth attempt, he sold "Author! Author!" to Campbell, but the magazine was canceled before it could appear.<ref name=IMYG_380>Asimov, In Memory Yet Green, pp. 380, 390.</ref> It eventually appeared in the anthology The Unknown Five.<ref name=Tuck_Bensen/>
In addition to the overlap between the writers of Unknown and Astounding, there was a good deal of overlap between their readerships:<ref name=TCOT_25>Carter, Creation of Tomorrow, pp. 25–26.</ref> Asimov records that during the war, he read only these two magazines.<ref name=IMYG_379>Asimov, In Memory Yet Green, p. 379.</ref>Template:Refn SF historian Paul Carter has argued that the spectrum of fantastic fiction from Weird Tales through Unknown to Astounding was far less cleanly separated than is sometimes assumed: many stories in the early science fiction magazines such as Wonder Stories were more like the works of Edgar Allan Poe than they were tales of scientific imagination.<ref name=TCOT_25/>
Fritz Leiber's first published story was "Two Sought Adventure", which appeared in the August 1939 issue of Unknown; this was the first story in his long-running Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series about a pair of adventurers in a sword and sorcery setting. Four more Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories appeared in Unknown in as many years, and Leiber's novel Conjure Wife, about a man who discovers that all women are secretly witches, was the lead story in the April 1943 issue. The protagonist, a university professor, "is forced to abandon scepticism and discover the underlying equations of magic, via symbolic logic", in critic David Langford's description.<ref name=ESF_FRL>David Langford, "Fritz Leiber", in Clute & Grant, Encyclopedia of Fantasy, pp. 573–574.</ref> Leiber also contributed "Smoke Ghost" in October 1941, described by Ashley as "arguably the first seriously modern ghost story".<ref name=EF_U/> Another writer whose first story appeared in Unknown was James H. Schmitz, whose "Greenface" appeared in the August 1943 issue.<ref name=issues/><ref name=TWOSF_113>del Rey, World of Science Fiction, p. 113.</ref>
Other notable stories that appeared in Unknown include Jack Williamson's "Darker Than You Think" (December 1940), which provides a scientific basis for a race of werewolves living undetected alongside human beings. Expanded into a novel in 1948, it remains Williamson's best-known fantasy, and SF historian Malcolm Edwards comments that the two protagonists' relationship is "depicted with a tortured (and still haunting) erotic frankness unusual in genre literature of the 1940s".<ref name=TTM_140/><ref name=EF_JW>John Clute, "Jack Williamson", in Clute & Grant, Encyclopedia of Fantasy, p. 1018.</ref> In addition to the Harold Shea pieces, de Camp published several other well-received stories, including "The Wheels of If" (October 1940) and "Lest Darkness Fall" (December 1939), an alternate history story about a time-traveler who attempts to save the Roman Empire from the coming Dark Ages; Edwards and Clute comment that the story is "the most accomplished early excursion into history in magazine SF, and is regarded as a classic".<ref name=EF_LSDC/><ref name=ESF_LSDC>Malcolm Edwards & John Clute, "L. Sprague de Camp", in Clute & Nicholls, Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, pp. 308–310.</ref> Also highly regarded is Wellman's "When It Was Moonlight" (December 1940), a story about Poe.<ref name=TTM_140/>
The first sixteen issues of Unknown had cover paintings, but from July 1940 the cover style was changed to a table of contents, with a small ink drawing usually accompanying the summary of each story, in an attempt to make the magazine appear more dignified.<ref name=ESF_U/><ref name=issues>See the individual issues. For convenience, an online index is available at {{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The cover art came almost entirely from artists who did not contribute to many science fiction or fantasy magazines: six of the sixteen paintings were by H. W. Scott; Manuel Islip, Modest Stein, Graves Gladney, and Edd Cartier provided the others. Cartier was the only one of these who regularly contributed to SF and fantasy periodicals; he painted four of UnknownTemplate:'s last six covers before the change to a text-heavy design.<ref name=TTM_A4>Ashley, Time Machines, pp. 266–282.</ref>
InfluenceEdit
Unknown was, along with Weird Tales, an important early influence on the fantasy genre.<ref name=EF_U/> In the foreword to From Unknown Worlds, in 1948, Campbell commented that fantasy before Unknown had been too much infused with "gloom and terror"; his approach in Unknown had been to assume that the "creatures of mythology and folklore" could be characters in an amusing tale as easily as they could be made part of a horror story. Horror stories, he said, had a place, but "horror injected with a sharp and poisoned needle is just as effective as when applied with the blunt-instrument technique of the so-called Gothic horror tale". Campbell insisted on the same rational approach to fantasy that he required of his science fiction writers, and in the words of Clareson, this led to the destruction of "not only the prevalent narrative tone but also most of the trappings that had dominated fantasy from The Castle of Otranto and The Monk through the nineteenth century to Weird Tales".<ref name=SFFWFM_U/> Unknown quickly separated itself from Weird Tales, whose fantasies still primarily aimed to produce fear or shock. The closest predecessor to Unknown was Thorne Smith, whose prohibition-era "Topper" stories also mixed fantasy with humor.<ref name=EF_U/> Before Unknown, fantasy had received little serious attention, though on occasion writers such as James Branch Cabell had achieved respectability.<ref name=EF_U/> In Ashley's opinion, Unknown created the modern genre of fantasy,<ref name=EF_U/> though commercial success for the genre had to wait until the 1970s.<ref name=ESF_F>Brian Stableford & Peter Nicholls, "Fantasy", in Clute & Nicholls, Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, p. 410.</ref>
Clareson also suggests that Unknown influenced the science fiction that appeared in Astounding after Unknown folded. According to this view, stories such as Clifford Simak's City series would not have appeared without the destruction of genre boundaries that Campbell oversaw. Clareson further proposes that Galaxy Science Fiction and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, two of the most important and successful science fiction and fantasy magazines, were direct descendants of Unknown.<ref name=SFFWFM_U/>
Unknown is widely regarded as the finest fantasy magazine ever published:<ref name=EF_U/> Ashley says, for example, that "Unknown published without doubt the greatest collection of fantasy stories produced in one magazine."<ref name=HSFM2_40>Ashley, History of the Science Fiction Magazine Vol. 2, p. 40.</ref> Despite its lack of commercial success, Unknown is the most lamented of all science fiction and fantasy magazines; Lester del Rey describes it as having gained "a devotion from its readers that no other magazine can match".<ref name=TWOSF_96>del Rey, World of Science Fiction, p. 96.</ref> Edwards comments that Unknown "appeared during Campbell's peak years as an editor; its reputation may stand as high as it does partly because it died while still at its best".<ref name=ESF_U/>
Bibliographic detailsEdit
| Year | Win | Spring | Summer | Autumn | Winter | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
| 1939 | 2/1 | 2/2 | 2/3 | 2/4 | ||||||||
| 1940 | 2/5 | 2/6 | 3/1 | 3/2 | 3/3 | 3/4 | 3/5 | 3/6 | 4/1 | 4/2 | 4/3 | 4/4 |
| 1941 | 4/5 | 4/6 | ||||||||||
| 1942 | 5/5 | 6/1 | 6/3 | |||||||||
| 1943 | 6/4 | 6/5 | (nn) | |||||||||
| 1944 | (nn) | (nn) | (nn) | |||||||||
| 1945 | 3/4 | 3/5 | 3/6 | |||||||||
| 1946 | 3/7 | 3/8 | ||||||||||
| 1947 | 3/9 | 3/10 | 3/11 | |||||||||
| 1948 | 3/12 | 4/1 | 4/2 | |||||||||
| 1949 | 4/3 | 4/4 | 4/5 | |||||||||
| Underlining indicates that an issue was dated with the season ("Spring 1945") rather than the month. John W. Campbell was editor throughout.<ref name="Tuck_U"/> | ||||||||||||
Unknown was edited by John W. Campbell and published by Street & Smith Publications throughout its run. It was pulp-sized from its launch through August 1941, and then bedsheet-sized from October 1941 to April 1943. The last three issues were pulp-sized again.<ref name=SFFWFM_U/> Street & Smith had planned to switch it to digest size with the December 1943 issue, but it was canceled before that issue appeared.<ref name=ESF_U>Malcolm Edwards, "Unknown", in Clute & Nicholls, Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, pp. 1258–1259.</ref> The price began at 20 cents and rose to 25 cents with the change to bedsheet size; it remained at 25 cents when the size changed back to pulp. It had 164 pages when pulp-sized and 130 pages while it was bedsheet-sized. It began as a monthly and switched to bimonthly from December 1940 on.<ref name=SFFWFM_U/> The volume numbering was regular, with six volumes of six numbers and a final volume of three numbers.<ref name=Tuck_U/> The title began as simply Unknown. In December 1940 "Fantasy Fiction" was added as a subtitle, and from the October 1941 issue the title became Unknown Worlds.<ref name="Kyle" />
The first six U.S. issues were available directly in the UK, but thereafter an abridged British reprint edition was issued by Atlas Publications, beginning in September 1939. It was pulp-sized, and priced at 9d (nine pence) throughout. It appeared on a regular monthly schedule until December 1940, after which the schedule became quite irregular, with two or three issues appearing each year until 1949. The volume numbering initially followed the corresponding U.S. editions, with some omitted numbers in 1942 and 1943, and then disappeared for four issues; from the twenty-eighth issue (Spring 1945) the magazine was numbered as if it had been given volumes of twelve numbers since the start of the run. The title was changed from Unknown to Unknown Worlds with the March 1942 issue.<ref name=Tuck_U/><ref name=SFFWFM_U/>
Related publicationsEdit
In 1948, Street & Smith reprinted several stories from Unknown in a bedsheet-sized magazine format, priced at 25 cents, with the title From Unknown Worlds. This was an attempt to determine if there was a market for a revived Unknown.<ref name=Tuck_U/><ref name=TWOSF_299>del Rey, World of Science Fiction, p. 299.</ref> Street & Smith printed 300,000 copies, against the advice of John Campbell, but although it sold better than the original, too many copies were returned for the publisher to be willing to revive the magazine.<ref name=TWOSF_299/> The issue was reprinted in Britain in 1952, reduced in size to Template:Convert and cut from 130 pages to 124; it was priced at 2/6 (two shillings and six pence). Part of the run was issued in a hardcover binding at a higher price. One story from the U.S. version was omitted: "One Man's Harp" by Babette Rosmond.<ref name=Tuck_U/><ref name=SFFWFM_U/><ref name=Currey>Currey, Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors, pp. 99–100.</ref>
Three anthologies of stories from Unknown were published in the early 1960s.<ref name=ESF_U/><ref name=Tuck_Bensen>"Donald R. Bensen", in Tuck, Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Vol. 1, p. 39.</ref><ref name=Tuck_Hay>"George Hay", in Tuck, Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Vol. 1, p. 211.</ref> The Unknown Five includes four stories reprinted from Unknown and the first print appearance of "Author! Author!", by Isaac Asimov, which was sold to Unknown shortly before Street & Smith shut it down.<ref name=IMYG_380/> Two additional Unknown anthologies were published in the late 1980s.
| Year | Editor | Title | Publisher | Length and price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1948 | John W. Campbell, Jr. | From Unknown Worlds | Street & Smith: New York | 130 pp.; 25¢ |
| 1963 | D. R. Bensen | The Unknown | Pyramid: New York | 192 pp.; 50¢ |
| 1963 | George Hay | Hell Hath Fury | Neville Spearman: London | 240 pp.; 15/- |
| 1964 | D. R. Bensen | The Unknown Five | Pyramid: New York | 190 pp.; 50¢ |
| 1988 | Stanley Schmidt | Unknown | Baen Books: New York | 304 pp.; $3.50 |
| 1989 | Stanley Schmidt, Martin H. Greenberg | Unknown Worlds: Tales from Beyond | Galahad Books: New York | 517 pp.; $9.98 |
NotesEdit
ReferencesEdit
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SourcesEdit
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External linksEdit
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