Under the Moons of Mars: A History and Anthology of "the Scientific Romance" in the Munsey Magazines, 1912-1920 (72 page)

Howard D. Wheeler, editor of EVERYBODY'S MAGAZINE, was greatly impressed by the novel and made it the subject of a cover painting by Everett Shinn, a member of the artistic "The Eight" with John Sloan, and commissioned numerous line drawings by Joseph Clement Coll, some of which were reproduced in the book version published by A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago, in 1917. Coll was characterized as "perhaps America's greatest virtuoso in the use of pen and ink" by Harold Von Schmidt in
The Illustrators of America 1900-1960's
(Reinhold Publishing Company, 1966). Further, "he commanded an awesome technical dexterity. He employed his penpoint as freely as a paintbrush," and was especially favored "for mystery stories by such authors as A. Conan Doyle and Sax Rohmer."

The Messiah of the Cylinder
has the grave fault of imitation and suffers from lapses into pulp-writing carelessness; the bias of the author toward Catholicism is enough to embarrass a pope. All these faults acknowledged, it is a better story than
When the Sleeper Wakes
, moving forward with a drive and vitality rare in any novel. The author's presentation of a socialist tyranny of the future must be termed brilliant rather than ingenious, as he fascinatingly delineates its basis, regulations, terminology, and slang. This is all accomplished without ever losing the authenticity of relating these changes to human nature. It is on this last point, in his ability to offer psychological motivation for the actions of his characters, that portions of the novel achieve memorable poignancy. Despite its flaws, it is one of the most vigorous and readable "warning" stories ever to appear in science fiction.

In addition to the regular announcement in "Heart to Heart Talks," Bob Davis had given
The Sea Demons
, by Victor Rousseau, a full-page splash facing the opening story of the December 25, 1915, issue, in which he raved: "Not since Rudyard Kipling wrote
With the Night Mail
and created out of his own imagination, complete from keel to conning tower and from gas tanks to pithing iron, an air greyhound that could cross the Atlantic in a night—a
real
airship, as convincing as a motorboat—has anything so realistic in the way of pure fantasy been written as
The Sea Demons
."

Rousseau's novel was in dramatic contrast to
The Air Trust
, by George Allan England, published in 1915 by Phil Wager, St. Louis. Bob Davis, who had serialized
The Golden Blight
, had better sense than to schedule this one, which told of a monopoly gaining control of the air and planning to enslave the masses in exchange for permitting them to breathe. The book came out for overthrow of the existing government by violent revolution and was illustrated by John Sloan, an artist with strong socialistic leanings. The artwork was probably contributed and the publication paid for by the author. Davis did give it a plug in the January 29, 1916, ALL-STORY WEEKLY, stating: "...
The Air Trust
, in which the author attempts to show that monopoly may someday reach the very air we breathe, is now on sale at all book stores for $1.25 a copy.

"We did not publish
The Air Trust
in these pages, but nevertheless I sincerely hope that it will become one of the best-sellers. It was dedicated to Eugene V. Debs and is published by the National Ripsaw Company, St. Louis, Missouri."

The January 1, 1916, issue, in which
The Sea Demons
began, also contained installments of
Polaris of the Snows
and
The Son of Tarzan
. Apparently the circulation of ALL-STORY MAGAZINE needed a shot in the arm again, and the one quick, sure way Davis knew was to lard it up with fantasy.

What was the circulation of ALL-STORY MAGAZINE in 1916? A figure of "200,000 weekly" was published in the issue of December 2, 1916, in reply to a letter by a youngster who would one day become a science-fiction author, Wallace West. There is reason to doubt that figure, based on the published line rates for classified ads of the various Munsey magazines. The highest was MUNSEY'S MAGAZINE, at two dollars a line; THE ARGOSY was second, at $1.30, THE RAILROAD MAN'S MAGAZINE third with eighty cents, and ALL-STORY WEEKLY last with sixty cents. MUNSEY'S had claimed four hundred thousand circulation in 1912 and had raised the price to fifteen cents from ten cents. By Frank A. Munsey's own admission, there had been a gradual decline in circulation as a result. It is quite probable that MUNSEY'S MAGAZINE was selling about three hundred thousand in 1915, for in November of that year the price had been reduced to ten cents to regain circulation.

If MUNSEY'S circulation was as estimated, ALL-STORY WEEKLY could have been selling as few as one hundred thousand, based on the ratio of its ad rate to circulation, and even THE ARGOSY only two hundred thousand. If MUNSEY'S MAGAZINE had retained its four hundred thousand circulation of 1912, ALL-STORY MAGAZINE, at a maximum, could not have been doing over one hundred twenty-five thousand in weekly sales.

Were the Frank A. Munsey Company to receive one hundred per cent of the proceeds from the sale of ALL-STORY WEEKLY on one hundred thousand, it would have grossed ten thousand dollars. However, it had to give the newsdealers IVi cents a copy, so that left seventy-five hundred dollars. Since each issue ran well over one hundred thousand words, stories cost one thousand dollars per issue. In addition to Bob Davis, there was at least one other editor working on the magazine, plus a secretary. Paper, printing, and distribution were other major costs to be deducted from gross receipts. In balance, Munsey had his own ultramodern printing plant, so those costs were rock bottom. Munsey did his own distribution, eliminating the distributor's profit. It is still understandable why illustrations were left out: with an average of ten to fifteen stories an issue, even at five dollars a drawing they were important money, particularly when the price of making the engravings was added to the total.

In this tight situation, an author like Edgar Rice Burroughs presented a magazine like ALL-STORY WEEKLY, which obviously did not operate on a too generous margin of profit, with an economic problem. Davis had paid three thousand dollars for the hundred thousand word
The Son of Tarzan
on May 25, 1916. That was obviously the budget for
three entire issues
. The low rate of two-thirds cent a word received by Stilson and other authors was necessary to try to keep expenditures in line.

On June 17, 1917, Bob Davis rejected a novelette of Edgar Rice Burroughs titled
Ben, King of Beasts
. The core of the story involved a lion with a black mane whose life is saved by an American and who shows affection in acknowledgment of the fact. When the lion is captured and brought to the United States, it escapes but chances upon the American who saved its life, inadvertently helping him solve a serious problem. The story was not up to Burroughs' standard, but quite readable and entertaining. NEW STORY MAGAZINE also rejected it on July 3, 1915, but THE NEW YORK EVENING WORLD, which had reprinted Burroughs' novels in serial form since 1913, and through 1918 would run about a dozen, published it in six daily installments, November 15-20, 1915, under the title of
The Man Eater
. The paper sold for only one cent, so a Burroughs fan could obtain the complete work for only six cents.

Another short story, titled
Beyond Thirty
, was rejected by Bob Davis September 7, 1915. He asserted that it was a superb tableau, but he felt that nothing happened in the story. Its jumping-off place from World War I was also held against it, since ALL-STORY WEEKLY had a policy of minimizing war stories. The story had first been submitted to THE SATURDAY EVENING POST, where it was refused August 13, 1915.

Beyond Thirty
takes place two hundred years in the future, and in that entire time the continents of North and South America have been cut off from Europe because of submarine attacks and floating mines. The line of demarcation is 30 W, which is the derivation of the title. A plane which accidentally crosses this line ends up in England, and it is found that Europe has degenerated to savagery, and lions and tigers roam the sites of demolished cities. Abyssinia, which never entered the war, is relatively strong enough to prey upon the divided, disorganized, and diminished European nations. China has conquered all of the Far East and is the dominant power. The story was submitted to NEW STORY MAGAZINE, which had just changed its title with the December, 1915, issue to ALL-AROUND MAGAZINE, where it was published in the February, 1916, issue. The magazine badly needed the boost, for it was in serious trouble, but the one-shot wasn't enough to save it, and it expired with its March, 1917, number.

The rejection of
Beyond Thirty
was difficult to understand. It was one of Burroughs' most imaginative works up to that time, and only its dating upon the end of World War I prevented its being reprinted in book form during Burroughs' lifetime. To accept
The Girl from Farris'
(which still had not been published) just to keep Burroughs from going elsewhere, and then to permit
Ben, King of Beasts
, and
Beyond Thirty
to go elsewhere seemed inconsistent.

When Bob Davis wrote Burroughs on November 20, 1915, that he didn't like the new Tarzan novel,
Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar
, and would consider it only if the rate were cut, the situation seemed to clarify. ALL-STORY WEEKLY was experiencing difficulties in building a profitable circulation, and this was affecting their ability and willingness to pay.

Burroughs sensed the situation and hopped a train for New York from Chicago. He visited Bob Davis at 8 West 40th Street on November 22, 1915, and had a long discussion about the matter. When he left to return to Chicago, the price had not yet been decided upon. On December 16, 1915, a check went out for twenty-five hundred dollars. While this was five hundred dollars less than for The
Son of Tarzan
, it actually represented an increase in rates, for
Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar
was but sixty thousand words long, as compared to the former's one hundred thousand.

It can be seen that both Edgar Rice Burroughs and Bob Davis now had a problem. Burroughs realized that, temporarily at least, there was a ceiling on the rate of pay he could expect from ALL-STORY WEEKLY, and that exception from rejection was a thing of the past. Bob Davis understood that he could no longer hope to keep Burroughs on a near-exclusive basis and that it would tax his budget to buy from him even occasionally. Yet he needed what Burroughs had to offer to sustain and build the readership of his weekly.

Burroughs lived in a Chicago suburb, at 6415 Augusta, Oak Park, Illinois. A favorite hangout of writers in Chicago was the White Paper Club, and Burroughs sometimes visited it. A leading literary figure in Chicago was Ray Long, considered one of America's great editors. He had worked under Benjamin B. Hampton as assistant editor of HAMPTON'S MAGAZINE in 1910 and 1911. The extraordinary success of that magazine during those two years had attracted the attention of Louis Eckstein, publisher of THE RED BOOK MAGAZINE, THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE, and THE GREEN BOOK MAGAZINE in Chicago. Long came to work for him December 18, 1911, and replaced Karl Edwin Harrison, who took a position as managing editor of LADIES' HOME JOURNAL. When Ray Long took over RED BOOK, its circulation was two hundred twenty-five thousand. When he left to accept the editorship of COSMOPOLITAN on December 18, 1918, the circulation was over six hundred thousand.

Ray Long's assistant, working on BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE, was Donald Kennicott, who had sold several nonfantasy stories to THE SCRAP BOOK and one to ALL-STORY WEEKLY as late as 1915. Kennicott was thoroughly familiar with Burroughs' works and knew of his impressive following.

Burroughs met the two editors at the White Paper Club, and the result was an offer by Ray Long to pay three hundred fifty dollars each for a series of twelve short stories (six thousand words in length) about Tarzan to be run in BLUE BOOK. This amounted to a rate of a little under seven cents per word.

Burroughs had a gentleman's agreement with Davis to give him first look at any Tarzan stories, so he wrote on March 17, 1916, telling him that he had been given a generous offer for a series of twelve shorts, and would there be any objection to the sale.

Davis was in no position to match the wordage rate, nor did he want to establish a precedent. On March 20, 1916, he replied that Burroughs could go ahead, since he was interested only in serials. This was quite patently untrue, since Davis had run a series of connected short stories by Sax Rohmer, and another with a slight fantasy twinge,
The Gods of the Invincibly Strong Arms
, by Achmed Abdullah. The twelve Tarzan stories were printed in BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE September, 1916-August, 1917, and were later placed in hardcover by McClurg, March 29, 1919, at $ 1.40 as
Jungle Tales of Tarzan
.

In this series, Burroughs told anecdotes from Tarzan's early life, before he met Jane and married her. The episodes are superbly handled, displaying deep psychological insights on Burroughs' part. The initial story,
Tarzan's First Love
, was the subject of an illustrated appraisal, running over a full page, in THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW for December 22, 1968, by Saul Maloff. "There in the 'dark continent' of the mind . . . Tarzan comes alive, opens up, breathes; and so does the prose that lifts him into the low-swung trees," Maloff states. He reads much into the lines of that story, concluding: "This is the immortal Tarzan of the imagination—alone and desolate but also free, doomed to swing for eternity through the middle terraces between heaven and earth, seeking his murdered mother, whose loving boy he will always remain, and hers alone."

Davis, one of the great fiction editors of all time, in contest with another of the acknowledged great editors, was to discover that money counted for more than his persuasiveness. But he had anticipated the inevitability of losing his exclusivity on Burroughs and had taken steps to cope with the situation. He had bought and paid for enough Burroughs stories to last for two years or maybe longer. On hand was
The Girl from Farris'
, forty-one thousand words bought April 1, 1914, for one thousand dollars;
The Lad and the Lion
, submitted initially as a twenty-seven-thousand-worder, for which he paid six hundred seventy dollars on March 25, 1914, and then lengthened to thirty-eight thousand words, with an additional payment of two hundred seventy dollars going out on April 15, 1914; the thirty-nine-thousand-word
The Cave Man
was purchased for nine hundred seventy-five dollars on August 26, 1914; a new story in the Martian series,
Carthoris
, a forty-six-thousand-worder, had been bought on June 24, 1914, for $1,150 and would be retitled
Thuvia, Maid of Mars
;
H. R. H. The Rider
was valued at eight hundred dollars for its thirty-four thousand words, which sum was sent January 4, 1916. The long-awaited sequel to
The Mucker
,
Out There Somewhere
, would still arrive, and he would pay one thousand seven hundred twenty-five dollars for its sixty-nine thousand words on March 29, 1916, and it would be published as
The Return of the Mucker
. These would have to do. Burroughs had kept all of his commitments, and he would not sell nor would Davis buy another work for almost four years, though there would be a steady exchange of correspondence during the entire period.