The Argosy, Vol. 51, No. 2

A wood-engraved interior illustration—typical of The Argosy's pre-chromolithograph era—depicts a hospital or convent ward at night. A nun in full black habit and white coif stands at the foot of an iron-framed bed, while a luminous angelic figure hovers in the shadowed upper right, suggesting a vision or supernatural visitation. The scene signals the sentimental-Gothic fiction that filled Frank Munsey's flagship before it pivoted toward the blood-and-thunder adventure that defined pulp culture. Founded 1882, The Argosy is broadly credited as the first true pulp magazine—cheap paper, cheap price, mass audience—and the literary laboratory from which serialized genre fiction evolved into the comic book's direct ancestor. Artist unconfirmed.