Issue Review: The Story-Teller, October 1924

The Story-Teller is a British pulp, described by Mike Ashley as "the best all-round all-fiction magazine of its day" in The age of the story-tellers, his survey of British fiction magazines. This issue, from 1924, is from around the middle of the magazine's run from 1907 to 1936. The editor was Newman Flower of Cassell and Co., the publishers.

There are big names in this issue -  G.K. Chesterton with an instalment of Tales of the Long Bow and Sax Rohmer is represented by his occult detective Paul Harley while Frank Shaw (the British equivalent of the prodigious H. Bedford-Jones) contributes three stories under different names. The other stories are by authors less well-known today. There are no story illustrations and only a few pages of advertisements. Two of the stories were from American authors, only one of which was a reprint. A few poems and fillers complete the magazine. The issue I read was coverless, from a bound volume.

The Story-Teller, October 1924

Book Review: G.K. Chesterton - Tales of the Long Bow

I had read the Father Brown stories earlier but never followed up to find more stories by Chesterton. A recent purchase of a bound volume of the British pulp The Story-Teller with some Chesterton stories changed that. Those stories were later collected under the title Tales of the Long Bow, on the cover of which Chesterton is pictured laughing, and the spine has a picture of a man wearing a cabbage as a hat. These stories combine Chesterton’s philosophical urges with a good dose of whimsical and humorous story-telling.

British first edition dustjacket of Tales of the Long Bow