Series:Famous Fantastic Mysteries

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Title: Famous Fantastic Mysteries

Publishers:

The Frank A. Munsey Company 1939-1942
All-Fiction Field, Inc. A Popular Publication 1943-1951
Popular Publications, Inc. 1951-1953

Editor: Mary Gnaedinger

Issues: 81

Series: The Reader's Viewpoint - letter column and editorial content.

1 Introduction
2 Issues
3 Artists
- 3.1 Cover Artists
- 3.2 Interior Artists
4 Image Sources

Introduction

From Tuck's Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy: A magazine founded to reprint fantasy and sf material from the old Frank A. Munsey magazines (Argosy, All-Story, etc.). It became popular in its initial year. Some novels were serialised in the early issues, until the companion Fantastic Novels was started and began publishing complete novels. (The latter, however, had only 5 issues at that time and was combined back into FFM). The covers were only coloured story listings until Feb 1940, when paintings by F. Paul and V. Finlay began. After FFM was bought by Popular Pubs, in 1943 the fiction policy changed to the reprinting of novels that had previously appeared only in book form. Some quite good works were presented; these are covered below. From Aug 1947 to Apr 1950 there was a section "Masters of Fantasy" (drawings and a short appreciation) by N. Austin. The magazine became "streamlined" from Jan 1951 - smaller in size and with no advertisements - but soon returned to its older format. Lawrence was the principal artist; in conjunction with Fantastic Novels, portfolios of work by Lawrence and V. Finlay were published. Popular's FFM also had Fantastic Novels (2nd series) as a companion for a period, as well as A. Merritt's Fantasy and Super Science Stories' (2nd series). The Munsey FFM was used as a source for the fiction in the Canadian Super Science (Feb 1945 - Dec 1945).

Issues

1953

Feb

Apr

Jun

1952

Feb

Apr

Jun

Aug

Oct

Dec

1951:

Jan

Mar

May

Jul

Oct

Dec

1950

Feb

Apr

Jun

Aug

Oct

1949

Feb

Apr

Jun

Aug

Oct

Dec

1948

Feb

Apr

Jun

Aug

Oct

Dec

1947

Feb

Apr

Jun

Aug

Oct

Dec

1946

Feb

Apr

Jun

Aug

Oct

Dec

1945

Mar

Jun

Sep

Dec

1944

Mar

Jun

Sep

Dec

1943

Mar

Sep

Dec

1942

Feb

Apr

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

1941

Feb

Apr

Jun

Aug

Oct

Dec

1940

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Aug

Oct

Dec

1939

Sep

Nov

Dec

Artists

Cover Artists

Lawrence [39]
Virgil Finlay [27]
Norman Saunders [4]
Frank R. Paul [3]
De Soto [1]
Note: The first five issues do not have any cover art.

Interior Artists

Virgil Finlay [217]
Lawrence [180]
Frank R. Paul [86]
Hannes Bok [21]
Neil Austin [17]
Ronald Clyne [6]
Leydenfrost [4]
uncredited [36]
Other artists with 1 or 2 illustrations are Biedermann, Charles E. Kroma, Chas. McNutt, Fawcette, Fox, Frank Kramer, Napoli, Ted Palmer, and V. E. Pyles. The Neil Austin illustrations are for the "Masters of Fantasy" series which he authored.
Note: The number in parentheses is the total number of individual illustrations.

Image Sources

The cover images for these magazines supplied by Phil Stephensen-Payne's "Galactic Central"

Bibliographic Tasks

Task	Status
Data Entry	Complete
Physical Verification	Complete
Merge titles	Complete
Cross check reviews	Complete
Determine canonical names	Complete
Check for pseudonyms	Complete