The Master Thriller Series
The Master Thriller Series was a British pulp magazine line published by The World's Work, a Doubleday subsidiary, that reprinted American pulp fiction in many genres. It ran from July 1933 to December 1939 in the United Kingdom and was issued in English.
Publication history
- Frequency: quarterly from 1933–1938, then monthly in 1939 (after 24 issues).
- Total issues: 32.
- First issue: Tales of the Foreign Legion (July 1933).
- Final issue: Tales of Ghosts and Haunted Houses (December 1939).
Content and quality
- The magazines reprinted American stories and sometimes included British reprints and a few original tales.
- Early issues featured well-known writers such as Somerset Maugham, Algernon Blackwood, and P. C. Wren; later issues had less prestigious authors.
- Some themes were popular enough to warrant more than one issue under the same title, for example Tales of the Foreign Legion (five issues) and Tales of the Uncanny and Tales of the Jungle (second issues).
Related titles and context
- The Worlds Work published several other magazines connected to The Master Thriller Series, including Fireside Ghost Stories, Ghosts and Goblins, and Mystery and Detection (which followed Tales of Mystery and Detection in the series order).
- Tales of Wonder was once thought to be part of the series, but it is now considered separate from the outset.
- Magazine historian Mike Ashley noted that the stories varied in quality, but the range of themes gave the overall series more value than any single issue.
Format and publishing details
- Editor: H. Norman Evans.
- Format: pulp magazines priced at 1 shilling.
- Page count: usually 128 pages; the final issue had 96 pages.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 18:39 (CET).