On this day in 1920, H. L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan launched The Black Mask, a pulp magazine offering “the best stories available of adventure, the best mystery and detective stories, the best romances, the best love stories, and the best stories of the occult.” But Black Mask as history remembers it can largely be credited to “Cap” Joseph Shaw, appointed editor in 1926. Shaw promptly dropped the The from the magazine’s title and most non-detective writers from its roster, turning it instead into a pioneering publisher of hard-boiled crime fiction. Authors published by Black Mask include Dashiell Hammett of The Maltese Falcon fame, Raymond Chandler, Erle Stanley Gardner, and Carroll John Daly, writer of “Three Gun Terry,” which is considered the very first hard-boiled PI story.
Black Mask folded after thirty-one years in July 1951 due to competition from mass-market paperbacks and other pulp magazines, as well as the rise of radio. However, contemporary readers can still experience Black Mask’s indelible influence on mystery writing: Individual stories and collections from its pages are being republished as ebooks through a partnership with MysteriousPress.com and Open Road Integrated Media. Fourteen Black Mask titles are already available, with more on the way. Celebrate the anniversary of this seminal magazine and join the pulp revival today!
For more on Black Mask’s contributions to the genre, watch this video narrated by MysteriousPress.com publisher Otto Penzler.