Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2005 13:56:14 -0400 (EDT)
From: dicconf <dicconf at radix.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: 17 Boxes of SF & Pulp magazines
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

On Tue, 5 Apr 2005, Ted White wrote:

> >From the description ("They range in dates from the mid-1960s to the
> mid-1990s.") there are *no* pulps at all in this lot -- only digest-sized
> magazines.   The digest replaced the pulp in the course of the '50s.

"Pulp" refers to the paper they're printed on (it used to be a little
coarser than is now the case), like Newsprint or slightly better.  The
sizes were bedsheet, standard, and digest.  ("Standard" was the normal
size for _all_ pulps -- stf, detective, western, romance and what not.)
"Bedsheet" was a size ASF tried just as World War Twice broke out; paper
shortages forced them to abandon it.  (Complaints from readers who found
it clumsy may have also played a role.)  "Digest" (from the size of the
eponymous Reader's Digest) became the normal size during the Second World
War and such mags as F&SF, Galaxy, and Avon Fantasy Reader never were any
other size.  But there was never any such _size_ as "pulp".

-- Dick Eney