Oriental Stories

Oriental Stories, later retitled The Magic Carpet Magazine, was an American pulp magazine of 1930-34, an offshoot of the famous Weird Tales.

Oriental Stories
Cover of first issue (October/November 1930)
EditorFarnsworth Wright
CategoriesPulp magazine
FrequencyBi-monthly (first three issues)
Quarterly (thereafter)
PublisherJ.C. Henneberger
First issueOctober 1930
Final issue
Number		January 1934
#1 (vol 4, 14th issue overall)
CompanyPopular Fiction
CountryUSA
Based inChicago
LanguageEnglish

Like its parent, it was published by J.C. Henneberger's Popular Fiction Publishing and edited by Farnsworth Wright. As its titles indicate, the magazine specialized in adventure and fantasy stories with Oriental settings and elements. Its stories were largely written by the same distinctive group of authors that filled the pages of Weird Tales, including Robert E. Howard, [1] Otis Adelbert Kline, E. Hoffmann Price, Clark Ashton Smith, and Frank Owen, among others.[2][3] Several of the covers for Oriental Stories were drawn by artists J. Allen St. John and Margaret Brundage.[3]

The magazine struggled financially for the entirety of its existence (as indeed did Weird Tales); it was published first bi-monthly, then quarterly, during the grimmest years of the Great Depression. Volume 1 of Oriental Stories consisted of 6 issues that appeared on newsstands from October 1930 through Autumn 1931; Volume 2 comprised only 3 issues in the first half of 1932 (Winter, Spring, Summer). After a six-month hiatus, the first of four quarterly issues of Volume 3 appeared in January 1933, but with the new title The Magic Carpet. ("Oriental Stories combined with The Magic Carpet Magazine," read the masthead of Vol. 3 No. 1, January 1933.) One notable contributor to The Magic Carpet was popular pulp author H. Bedford-Jones.[2] Still unable to muster sufficient circulation, Volume 4 started and ended with the single issue No. 1 in January 1934. The Magic Carpet was then defunct.

Notes
  1. Lord, Glenn, "Robert E. Howard, Professional Writer" by Glenn Lord, in Don Herron, ed. The Dark Barbarian: The Writings of Robert E Howard, a Critical Anthology. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1984, (pp. 135-148).ISBN 0-313-23281-4
  2. Ashley, Mike, "Oriental Stories" by in Ashley and M.B. Tymn. Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Weird Fiction Magazines. Westport: Greenwood, 1985. (pp. 454-456). ISBN 0-313-21221-X
  3. Hulse, Ed, The Blood 'n' Thunder Guide to Pulp Fiction. Morris Plains, New Jersey; Murania Press, 2018. ISBN 9781726443463 (pp. 205-206).

References

Jaffery, Sheldon R., and Fred Cook. The Collector's Index to Weird Tales. Bowling Green State University Popular Press, Bowling Green, Ohio, 1985. Appendix 1, pp. 149–52; Appendix 2, pp. 153–7.

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