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Richard Dale Mullen Pulp Magazine collection

 Collection
Identifier: ACA-0014-021

Collection Statement

DePauw University received the Mullen Pulp Magazine Collection from the estate of Richard Dale Mullen, founder of Science Fiction Studies and professor of English at Indiana State University. It contains pulp magazines ranging in date from 1874-1965. The collection includes all genres of fiction, but more than half of the collection consists of science fiction titles such as Amazing Stories, Astounding Stories and Science Wonder Stories.

Two additional series of pulp magazines from two donors in 2009 and 2014 have been added and are in separate series described at the end of this finding aid. These science fiction magazines extended the date range of the collection. Stephaine Wood, a DePauw alumnus who had taken a science fiction class at the university, added two more science fiction titles, Astounding Science Fiction and Galaxy Science Fiction, to the collection in 2008. Joe Decker donated additional Galaxy Science Fiction issues up to 1979.

While not complete, many of the collection's titles are long runs of magazines. One of the most complete in the DePauw collection is Hugo Gernsback's first title, Amazing Stories, that begins with the first issue from April 1926 and runs through June 1938, well after Gernsback lost ownership of the magazine in 1929. Some subsequent Gernsback titles are also present in the collection, Science Wonder Stories and Air Wonder Stories. Other popular magazines featuring science fiction writing and illustration are also represented in this remarkably large collection.

Dates

  • 1874 - 1979

Access Restrictions

Collection is open for research.

Usage Restrictions

Copyright interests for this collection are held by DePauw University.

Historical Sketch

In the years between the "dime novel" and the television, pulps were "the principle entertainment vehicle for millions of Americans," according to pulp publisher Henry Steeger. There were pulps for sports fans, pulps for detective-story fans, love story pulps, weird pulps, war pulps, western pulps, and pulps for dozens of other varied interests. The first pulp was created in 1896 when Frank Munsey changed THE ARGOSY from a boy's magazine to a fiction magazine for all ages, and printed it on the rough, wood-pulp paper that gives the pulps their name. The poor quality wood-pulp paper was a fairly recent invention at that time. For centuries paper made from linen or hemp rags; worn out canvas sails, discarded clothes sold to the papermills by thrifty housewives and the like provided the raw material from which paper was made. Thus, when Munsey decided that a story was more important than what it was printed on, it was wood pulp that was the cheap alternative. Pulp stories were important in launching the careers of such writers as Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, H. P. Lovecraft, and Cornell Woolrich.

Extent

23.94 Cubic Feet (127 flat document cases, 2 sizes; 7 volumes)

Language of Materials

English

Source

Title
Richard Dale Mullen Pulp Magazine collection Including Science Fiction Titles
Status
Completed
Author
Sheraya Smith
Date
3/20/2018
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Code for undetermined script
Language of description note
Description is in English.

Repository Details

Part of the Archives of DePauw University and Indiana United Methodism Repository

Contact:
Roy O. West Library
405 S. Indiana St.
Greencastle Indiana 46135 United States