#Pulp meaning serial

This issue of Startling Stories featured works by Philip K. Some artists made careers working exclusively for pulp magazines – Margaret Brundage created dozens of covers for “Weird Tales,” widely considered the greatest of the horror and fantasy pulps. Often, artists created a cover that would lure readers at newsstands, and writers then would develop stories around the illustrated theme. The striking cover art, which was at its most whimsical on the sci-fi and fantasy pulps, was a key factor in marketing and even story development. Although the spicy pulps enjoyed wide popularity in their day, none occupy the Library’s shelves – they were deemed unsuitable for collection at the time. The racier versions, known as “spicy” pulps, most often featured a scantily clad damsel in distress on the cover. Not known as purveyors of good taste, the pulps covered everything from romance and adventure to westerns and detective stories to horror and science fiction. Pulp-fiction serials rose to popularity primarily in the first half of the 20th century, as new technology permitted cheap, mass production and a more literate working class sought new sources of entertainment. Nathan Smith of the Collections Conservation Section demonstrates paper repair on the cover of a pulp-fiction magazine. “Since even the best microfilming efforts do not adequately reproduce illustrative material, especially color images, the pulp magazine cover collection preserves an aspect of the original that would otherwise be lost to researchers here at LC,” Higley said.Īs a result, the Collections Conservation Section is conserving the original covers, and the Preservation Reformatting Division oversaw the creation of preservation facsimiles of much of the remaining text. It was immediately apparent, however, that the color limitations of microfilm diminished the vibrant graphics.

The Library transferred most of the pulp serials to microfilm years ago because of the rapidly deteriorating wood-pulp paper. “Anyone studying magazine history considers the covers important primary sources.” “American popular culture is an ever-expanding scholarly field, and the pulp magazines were a publication type that was popularized in America,” said Georgia Higley, head of the Newspaper Section in the Serials Division.

#Pulp meaning serial

The Serial and Government Publications Division holds roughly 14,000 issues from more than 300 titles published in the United States between the 1920s and 1950s.

Technicians in the Preservation Directorate, however, are working to give new life to the lustrous, eye-catching covers in the Library of Congress’s sprawling collection of pulp-fiction magazines. In fact, they never were built to last – the pulps were printed on cheap, wood-pulp paper (hence the name “pulp fiction),” which quickly became brittle and acidic. The magazines that illustrated their exploits, unfortunately, haven’t fared as well. Pulp-fiction authors created some of the most enduring characters of any literary genre including Tarzan, detective Sam Spade, and the sword-wielding Zorro.

(The following is a story written by Lindsey Hobbs of the Library’s Preservation Directorate for the Library of Congress staff newsletter, The Gazette.) National Audio-Visual Conservation Center.National Ambassador for Young People's Literature.Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction.

Farm Security Administration Photographs.