This issue of The Argosy presents no painted cover—only clean letterpress typography announcing the October 1883 number, opening directly onto fiction: Chapter XXVIII of Winifred Power, subtitled 'Richard's Quixotry.' Founded by Frank Munsey in 1882, The Argosy was among the first all-fiction periodicals printed on cheap wood-pulp paper, giving the pulp magazine its name and its economic model. At this early date the formula was literary domestic fiction rather than lurid adventure, but Munsey's experiment in affordable mass-market storytelling established the distribution and editorial machinery that would, by the 1890s–1930s, spawn the genre pulps—science fiction, weird horror, hardboiled crime—whose conventions the comic book directly absorbed.
About this artifact
- Date
- October 1883
- Rights
- Public domain — free to view, share, and reuse.
- Restoration
- Digitally restored and hosted by comicbooks.com.
Part of our mission to preserve and restore the public-domain heritage of the medium.