Pulp magazines

Pulp magazines, often called simply "pulps", were cheap, often sensationalistic and/or exploititive magazines published in the 1930s - 1950s. The name comes from the cheap woodpulp paper on which they were printed. Pulps were the successor to the "penny dreadfuls" of the nineteenth century.

Pulp magazines can be categorized into the following genres:

• Detective / Mystery
• Romance
• Science Fiction
• True Crime
• Western

Many well-known authors note for the pulps at one time or another. Note that many people would make a distinction between an author who wrote for the pulps but later went on to transcend the limitations of the genre, and a "pulp author", who did not.

Well-known authors who wrote for the pulps include:

• Poul Anderson
• Isaac Asimov
• Robert Bloch
• Ray Bradbury
• Edgar Rice Burroughs
• Raymond Chandler
• Arthur C. Clarke
• Philip K. Dick
• Robert Heinlein
• Frank Herbert
• Robert E. Howard
• H. P. Lovecraft
• Clark Ashton Smith

Many classic science fiction books were originally serialized in pulp magazines.

The genre also gave name to the movie Pulp Fiction.