Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Detective Tales, September 1939

I think this is a Tom Lovell cover on this issue of DETECTIVE TALES, but I'm not absolutely certain. I am certain, though, that there's a great lineup of authors in these pages: Norbert Davis, Cleve F. Adams, Wyatt Blassingame, William B. Rainey (also Wyatt Blassingame), Emile C. Tepperman, Philip Ketchum, William R. Cox, Stewart Sterling, and Ray Cummings. Every one of those guys was a prolific, top-notch pulpster, and I'm sure this was a well-above average issue. 

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Strange Detective Mysteries, January 1941

I've never read an issue of STRANGE DETECTIVE MYSTERIES and don't own any, but I should probably try to remedy that because it looks like my kind of pulp! The covers make it look like a cross between a regular detective pulp and a Weird Menace pulp. I don't know who did the art on this one, but it's certainly eye-catching. And the authors inside are equally intriguing: Norvell Page, Henry Kuttner, Russell Gray (who was really Bruno Fischer), Stewart Sterling, and R.S. Lerch. That's a fine group.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Popular Detective, July 1950

Nothing like a beautiful blonde with a Tommy gun, as Rudolph Belarski demonstrates on this cover. There are some good authors in this issue of POPULAR DETECTIVE, including Stewart Sterling with a Gil Vine novelette (Gil Vine was a private detective in the pulps who became a house dick in a hotel when Sterling moved him to novels). Also on hand are Philip Ketchum (best known for his Westerns), O.B. Myers (best known for aviation yarns), Ray Cummings (best known for his science fiction), and detective pulp stalwarts J. Lane Linklater and Will Oursler, plus little-known, at least to me, Lew Talian and B.J. Benson.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Thrilling Mystery, May 1940

Rudolph Belarski provides the eye-catching cover for this issue of THRILLING MYSTERY, and spinning the yarns inside are Robert Bloch, G.T. Fleming-Roberts, Carl Jacobi, Stewart Sterling, Arthur K. Barnes, house-name Will Garth, and lesser-known pulpsters Russell Stanton and David Bernard. With covers and titles like that, it's no wonder the Weird Menace pulps sold so well for a while.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Black Mask, August 1940

BLACK MASK was past its glory days by 1940 but still producing good issues like this one, with an eye-catching Rafael DeSoto cover and some excellent authors inside: George Harmon Coxe with a Flashgun Casey story, Roger Torrey, Stewart Sterling, Wyatt Blassingame, G.T. Fleming-Roberts, and the lesser-known Eaton K. Goldthwaite. If you want to read this issue, it's available on-line.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Dime Mystery Magazine, July 1940

Rafael De Soto provides not only some action and a good-looking redhead, but also some downright weirdness in this cover for DIME MYSTERY MAGAZINE. The Weird Menace boom was just about over by the time this pulp was published, but you can still see its lingering influence in the cover and the story titles. There are some excellent authors in this issue: Bruno Fischer (as Russell Gray), Wyatt Blassingame, Stewart Sterling, Ralph Oppenheim (best remembered for his aviation yarns), and the lesser-known Costa Carousso and W. Wayne Robbins.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Detective Tales, February 1942

I hope whoever has that gun hands it to the babe in the red dress. She looks a lot more capable of using it than that doofus she's tied up with. I don't know who painted this cover. Inside this issue of DETECTIVE TALES is an absolutely top-notch group of writers: Fredric Brown, Day Keene, John K. Butler, D.L. Champion, Stewart Sterling, John Hawkins, Curt Hamlin, Edward S. Williams, and William Benton Johnston. I'm not familiar with the last one of those guys, but I'll bet he was a pretty good writer to crack a Popular Publications pulp. 

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Detective Book Magazine, Fall 1938

All you have to do is look at how much is going on in this great cover to know it's by Norman Saunders. Holy cow! They just don't get much more pulpish than this one. Inside this issue of DETECTIVE BOOK MAGAZINE are a Duncan Maclain novel by Bayard Kendrick, a reprint of an Amusement Inc. story by Theodore Tinsley, and more yarns by James P. Olsen, Stewart Sterling, and Franklin H. Martin. Looks like a fantastic issue.  

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Thrilling Detective, February 1951

I'm used to seeing Sam Cherry's covers on Western pulps, but he also did a lot of work in other genres, and on paperback covers, as well. Here's one on an issue of THRILLING DETECTIVE, and I like it a lot. Inside are stories by Stewart Sterling, Norman A. Daniels (writing as Wayland Rice), D.L. Champion, house-names John L. Benton and Robert Wallace (who might well be either Sterling or Daniels in this case), and little known authors B.J. Benson and Burt Sims.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Argosy, March 1943

This is the final issue of ARGOSY published by the Frank A. Munsey Company before Popular Publications took over the magazine the next month. I used to own a copy of this issue--I remember that fine cover by Peter Stevens--but I don't think I ever got around to reading it. That's a shame, because inside are stories by H. Bedford-Jones, Norbert Davis, E. Hoffmann Price, Georges Surdez, Robert Carse, Tom W. Blackburn, William R. Cox, and Stewart Sterling. That's a great bunch of authors, but just par for the course where ARGOSY is concerned. 

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Top Detective Annual, 1952

That line "The Year's Best Mystery Story Anthology" makes it sound like the stories in this pulp are the best (in the editor's judgment) published in the past year, right? Well, you'd be wrong if you thought that. This is actually just a regular reprint pulp, with stories that go back to 1934 in their original appearances. Most are from various Thrilling Group pulps published during the Forties. But I'm willing to overlook that bit of hyperbole when you get a good Sam Cherry cover, along with writers such as Fredric Brown, William Campbell Gault, Murray Leinster, Stewart Sterling, Wyatt Blassingame, G.T. Fleming-Roberts, Dwight V. Babcock, Ray Cummings, and Joe Archibald. The stories may be reprints, but if you haven't read them before, they're new. And those are some good authors. 

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Detective and Murder Mysteries, March 1939

This is the first issue of a pretty obscure pulp that lasted only a handful of issues. That's a decent cover, and there are some good writers inside: Wayne D. Overholser (best known for his Westerns, of course), Stewart Sterling, Cyril Plunkett, John Wilstach, and Louis Trimble. Then there are authors I've never heard of: Wilcey Earle, Grantly Wallington (who sounds more like a foppish British playboy and whose story in this issue is the luridly titled "The Devil Peddles Reefers!"), and Kenny Kenmare (a house-name). I don't know if DETECTIVE AND MURDER MYSTERIES was any good, but it seems oddball enough to be worth picking up a copy if you ever come across one, which I never have.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Detective Tales, September 1939

Nice cover on this issue of DETECTIVE TALES. I think it might be by Tom Lovell, but that's just a guess on my part. No guess about the great group of authors inside, though: Norbert Davis, Cleve F. Adams, Philip Ketchum, Stewart Sterling, William R. Cox, Emile C. Tepperman, Ray Cummings, and Wyatt Blassingame. That's a bunch of top-notch talent.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Argosy, March 1943

By 1943, ARGOSY was owned by Popular Publications and was no longer a weekly, but it was still publishing plenty of good fiction. Consider the authors in this issue: H. Bedford-Jones, E. Hoffmann Price, Norbert Davis. William R. Cox, Georges Surdez, Tom W. Blackburn, Robert Carse, and Stewart Sterling. That's a really powerful line-up. Nice cover, too. I used to have this issue, but I don't believe I ever got around to reading it.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Five-Novels Monthly, March 1940

I'm not sure what's happening on this cover of FIVE-NOVELS MONTHLY, but it appears to be on the odd side.The five novels are by Stewart Sterling, John Murray Reynolds, S. Gordon Gurwit (names that are at least fairly familiar to me, especially Sterling), and Ben Peter Freeman and David Allan Ross, neither of whom I've heard of. All the stories sound pretty good, though, judging by their titles.