story papers Archives

Munro, 1886). Story Papers and Trade Waiting Family Story Paper was a general-interest weekly fiction paper that lasted for nearly 2,500 issues from 1873-1921.  It is widely considered to be one of the best-selling story papers of its era, and was part of the basis for publisher Norman L Munro's considerable fortune.  We've discussed Munro here a[...]

J.F. Bardsley's fictional story "At Sea With an Infernal Machine" in Saturday Evening Post Volume 61 #23 of 1881 was based on pivotal history

283 January 31, 1874, and referenced an 1889 article that discussed story paper circulation in that era.  A "story paper" is simply an illustrated weekly periodical that features fiction, in what we think of as a newspaper format.  The serials featured in story papers were often collected into complete stories called libraries, in a stapled-together[...]

10 January 11, 1875 published by Street & Smith At a glance, The Two Avengers; The Masked Robber of the Death Ranch in the January 11, 1875 issue of New York Weekly seems to be a typical example of a blood and thunder tale of masked frontier bandits that one might find in any number of story papers[...]

I bought this for cheap on a whim recently, because the image is so interesting, but it turned out to be far more fascinating than I thought it might be.