The Argosy, Vol. 44

This issue of The Argosy predates the lurid painted covers that would define the pulp era — it presents as a respectable literary monthly, its typography plain and authoritative, its pages dense with serialized fiction. Shown here is the opening of Lady Grace, Chapter XI, by Mrs. Henry Wood, author of the sensation novel East Lynne. Frank Munsey's Argosy would not fully convert to wood-pulp paper and mass-market adventure until 1896, but this 1887 volume represents the direct ancestor of that transformation. The magazine's shift toward cheap paper, broad fiction categories, and high-volume readership over the following decade created the template — the very word "pulp" — from which science fiction, weird fiction, and hardboiled crime would all eventually emerge.