The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction - 1940s-1950s

1940s-1950s

In the mid-1940s, McComas was the co-editor, with Raymond J. Healy, of the pioneering anthology, Adventures in Time and Space (1946). The massive volume, a Modern Library Giant, introduced many readers to science fiction when it appeared on library shelves during the post-WWII years. Boucher was writing radio scripts in the late 1940s, but he left dramatic radio in 1948, as he explained to William F. Nolan, "mainly because I was putting in a lot of hours working with J. Francis McComas in creating what soon became The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. We got it off the ground in 1949 and saw it take hold solidly by 1950. This was a major creative challenge, and although I was involved in a lot of other projects, I stayed with F&SF into 1958."

In actuality, four years passed as Boucher and McComas attempted to launch their magazine of fantasy and supernatural stories. They initially proposed to Fred Dannay the notion of a sister publication for Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Dannay recommended them to Spivak. In January 1946, Boucher and McComas went to New York and met with Spivak, who suggested they assemble the contents for a test issue. Returning to California, they submitted their outline on March 11, 1946, resulting in a letter of agreement that August.

In September 1947, Joseph Ferman, the general manager of Mercury Publications, requested the complete material for the experimental issue to be titled Fantasy and Horror (subtitled A Magazine of Weird and Fantastic Stories). Boucher and McComas delivered this the following month. Studying sales figures of other digest-size magazines, Ferman postponed publication. A full year passed before he reactivated the project in February 1949, suggesting the addition of a science fiction story. Three months later, Ferman came up with the new title, The Magazine of Fantasy. On October 6, 1949, the magazine was introduced with a big splash during an invitational luncheon at the Waldorf-Astoria with Basil Rathbone as the master of ceremonies.

What Boucher and McComas were striving to reach was a literary plateau far above the pulp plotlines and action-adventures many associated with the genre, and one way they achieved this was with a concentration on reprints. By eliminating interior illustrations and displaying text in a single column across the page, they gave their magazine the appearance of a literary journal. The story prefaces Boucher wrote were carefully calculated to pull the reader into the first paragraphs of the stories, setting the tone while providing background information and insights. This was one of the magazine's more distinctive features, and some readers chose to go through and absorb all of Boucher's prefaces before deciding which story to read first. Nolan, in the dedication to his book, 3 to the Highest Power (1968), took note of Boucher's brilliance in those illuminating introductions:

For Anthony Boucher, who... in eighty-seven splendidly edited issues of Fantasy & Science Fiction, perfected the Grand Art of the Preface.

At the time of the magazine's debut, Spivak was well known as the moderator-producer of radio's American Mercury Presents: Meet the Press, in addition to publishing the unprofitable American Mercury magazine, 30 annual mystery reprints and the profitable Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, which had a 200,000 circulation. The Magazine of Fantasy was launched with a print run of 70,000. Interviewed by Time about Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine's new companion, Boucher looked ahead to monthly publication and commented, "The detective story is getting into a blind alley of repetition. Science fiction may be the next big escape."

Boucher's Berkeley residence at 2643 Dana Street served as F&SF's office, and shortly after the magazine began, the Berkeley Post Office called to inform Boucher that it was creating a special mail sack for all the incoming correspondence, a constant flow that included some 80 to 120 manuscript submissions each week.

The Magazine of Fantasy was subtitled An Anthology of the Best Fantasy Stories, Old and New. That first issue offered a mix of new contributions and reprints. The new stories were by Cleve Cartmill, H.H. Holmes (pseudonym for Anthony Boucher), Philip MacDonald, Winona McClintic and Theodore Sturgeon. The Sturgeon story, "The Hurkle Is a Happy Beast," later resurfaced in many anthologies. The reprints were Guy Endore's "Men of Iron" (1940), Richard Sale's "Perseus Had a Helmet" (1938), Stuart Palmer's "A Bride for the Devil" (1940), Perceval Landon's 1908 "Thurnley Abbey," Oliver Onions' 1910 "Rooum" and Fitz-James O'Brien's "The Lost Room" (1858).

The second issue, as The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, featured stories by W. L. Alden, Robert Arthur, Ray Bradbury, Robert M. Coates, Miriam Allen DeFord, Anthony Hope, Damon Knight, Kris Neville, Walt Sheldon and Margaret St. Clair, plus a collaboration of L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt. With "The Gnurrs Come from the Voodvork Out," that issue introduced Reginald Bretnor, who became the magazine's resident humorist for many issues to come, contributing such stories as "Bug-Getter."

The third issue introduced the 23-year-old Richard Matheson, who made an indelible impression on readers with "Born of Man and Woman," his first published story.

Boucher and McComas began their "Recommended Reading" column in the second issue, with both editors handling the reviews. After the August, 1954 announcement that McComas was leaving the magazine to travel and write, Boucher took over as the sole book reviewer until his own departure in 1958.

When it began in 1949, the magazine was initially quarterly until the Fall 1950 issue. Frequency of publication increased to bimonthly in December 1950 and to monthly in 1952.