History of Atlas Publishing and Distributing - Blog #5

The year 1925 was a pivotal year for Atlas' growth for two reasons; joining the Anglo-American Chamber of Commerce in London and a first visit to New York City by publisher Walter S Dexter.

Dexter had been working hard on expanding the roster of books imported. He had established distribution contracts with a number of New York based "pulp" and "slick" publishers, but had never actually set foot on US soil. Presumably face-to-face negotiations were handled by his associates at Atlas Publishing Co Incorporated based at 150 Lafayette St, in New York.

Dexter renamed the UK office of the US business from Atlas Publishing Co Waste Material Publications, to Atlas Publishing Co Incorporated, keeping the London office at 28 Bishopsgate [1]

Dexter saw in the Anglo-American Chamber of Commerce an opportunity to elevate the standing of his business, rubbing shoulders with the like of General Electric and Canadian Pacific, and also put his stamp as the premier (only) distributor of American magazines in Britain. Formal recognition of his membership of the organization would underwrite his credibility in the eyes of American publishers keen to get into the British market.

Directors of the Anglo-American Chamber of Commerce, 1925

On March 16th 1925 , Atlas became an associate member in full standing of Anglo-American Chamber of Commerce in London (which had been established in 1916) . Atlas could only obtain associate membership, as full membership was reserved for companies owned by US citizens, but it was sufficient to warrant prominent mention in the 1925 edition of the Anglo-American Year Book, which contained multiple official listings of those magazines for which Atlas was the UK agent and official contact point in London.

Edited by Henry R. Amory and B.M. Gardner, The Anglo-American Year Book was a directory produced by the Anglo-American Chamber of Commerce in London to promote Anglo-American business within the UK. It was the Anglo-American commerce "bible", produced each year with a foreward by the US Ambassador to the Court of St James.

Atlas publishing were listed in the Year Book as “American Magazine Importers” and as the ONLY American Magazine Importer recognized by the Anglo-American Chamber of Commerce.

As shown by the roster below, Atlas had dropped the distribution of 5 magazines they had previously advertised in Summer 1922, but now in March 1925 had a roster of 28 magazines 

Magazines no longer listed were:

• Adventure Magazine (An unusual book to drop, as it was very popular, from Ridgeway's, and ran until 1971)
• Love Story (Again, an unusual drop. Published by Street & Smith until 1954, it was their biggest selling pulp. Circulation around 600,000 in 1929 but settled closer to 300,000 by 1938.[2] 
• Century
• Smith’s (Ended in 1922)
• Everybody’s (Initially, Everybody's Magazine published a combination of non-fiction articles and new fiction stories. By 1926, it had become a pulp fiction magazine and in 1929 it merged with Romance magazine.)

New Roster for 1925 listed were:

By the time the Year Book was published on 11th June 1925 Saucy Stories (UK) had just become Heart to Heart Stories (UK) and was soon to stop publication. However, in August 1925 -  Atlas became the London agents for Bernarr MacFadden's Muscle Builder magazine from Physical Culture Publishing Corporation, along with the Physical Culture magazine itself. The new magazines were completed by hobby magazine Motor Diesel.

First United States Visit by W S Dexter

On 13th Nov 1925 Walter Stephen Dexter first set his foot on US soil, arriving in New York on the SS Berengaria to visit the United States for 14 days.

RMS Berengaria (from Wikipedia).

He was visiting the United States in his position as "publisher", staying at the Pennsylvania Hotel in the heart of Manhattan mid-town.

The Hotel Pennsylvania was a hotel at 401 Seventh Avenue (15 Penn Plaza) in Manhattan, across from Pennsylvania Station and Madison Square Garden in New York City. Opened in 1919, it was at that time the largest hotel in the world. 

This was a far cry from Dexter's family home at 52 Mount Avenue in Westcliff-On-Sea, a new house in the middle class suburb of Southend, on the Thames estuary.

During his stay in New York, Dexter no doubt visited Street & Smith (whose books he had been importing), Black Mask publishers Pro-Distribution, Clayton to discuss British reprints of World Stories, Howard, Ainslee & Co, and possibly Ridgeway).

Certainly Dexter paid a visit to US publishers Famous Story Magazine Incorporated, of 461 Eight Ave. In fact, Dexter probably picked up the first edition of Famous Story Magazine off the stands outside his hotel. The Famous Story Magazine Co Incorporated offices were one block - less than 5 mins walk - from his hotel.

Route from Pennsylvania Hotel to Famous Story Magazine, Inc

Subtitled 'The World's Best Stories from Modern and Classic Literature', The Famous Story Magazine (USA) was launched in Oct 1925 as a twenty-five cent monthly by George T. Delacorte, Jr., founder of Dell Publishing

With negotiations completed, the Feb 1926 UK edition was a reprint of the Oct 1925 US edition, according to philps.com , with a cover price of 1/-.   

US Edition of Famous Story Magazine #1 (credit Galactic Central)

Although this was Dexter's first visit to the United States, his son Walter James ("Jimmy") Dexter had passed through the United States in 1919 on his way to the Far East, and earlier on Jan 17th 1925 son Walter James Dexter (who was an agent for the South British insurance Co) had arrived at Ellis Island, in transit to Shanghai China where he worked, staying in New York at the Hotel Netherlands for 7 days.

It is highly likely that son Jimmy had visited pulp publishers on his father's behalf that January, negotiating the representation of the magazines listed in the Anglo-American Year Book later that year. 

Whether Dexter Senior enjoyed his time in New York City goes unrecorded. His hotel was famed for its cocktails, but in 1925 America was in the grip of alcohol prohibition. Black Mask owner H.L. Mencken wrote in 1925 that prohibition was not working. 

Nonetheless, if one is so inclined, below is a recipe for the hotel's most famous cocktail.

© Ian Baker

[1] March 16th 1925   Atlas Publishing Co Incorporated listed as being at 28 Bishopsgate and 150 Lafayette St, NYC in the Anglo-American Yearbook.

[2]  ref Galactic Central - www.philsp.com

History of Atlas Publishing and Distributing - Blog #4

Initial Growth - 1922 - 1924

The next three years were to see a huge growth in Atlas' American magazine business distribution business, and the early steps in actually publishing UK editions of American pulps.  

By the start of 1922, in addition to the prize of a British edition of Saucy Stories, Atlas had secured UK distribution rights for twelve additional US magazines: 8 from Street & Smith , 2 from Ridgeway, 1 from The Century Co and 1 from Howard, Ainslee & Co [1]

The relationship with Street & Smith would continue for forty years.

Unlike the Saucy Stories deal, these magazines were likely sourced from remaindered US editions, returned from retailers and unsold editions returned from US wholesalers.

Street & Smith was by far their biggest supplier.

17th Mar 1922 saw the first UK classified advert by a retailer for Saucy Stories at 6d, advertised as 

"Special Lines at D. G. McLAREN’S., STATIONER & NEWSAGENT,  57 BARCLAY STREET, STONEHAVEN" Included "NOVELS, from 6d upwards. AMERICAN MAGAZINES, 9d each. SAUCY STORIES, 6d" [2]

Stonehaven was in the far north-east of Scotland.

The Summer 1922 edition of industry paper Mainly About Books (M.A.B.) contained an advert for Atlas listing 12 American magazines of which they had "back issues at job prices". No mention is made of Saucy Stories, presumably because there was no significant back-issue inventory of that title.

I suspect that Atlas had bought back issues in bulk - effectively to create a de facto monopoly for the distribution of American Magazines in the UK - and now styled themselves "The American Magazine Depot".

In later years, Walter S Dexter, Managing Director and Publisher of Atlas, would create a separate company "THE MAGAZINE COMPANY" at 18 Bride Lane for the purposes of selling to trade customers.

Dexter was also working on making inroads into the distribution of Bernarr MacFadden's magazines and books dedicated to physical improvement. This was a popular genre with the public.

By August 1922, Atlas had secured a contract to distribute US editions of Macfadden's Physical Culture ,  displacing MacFadden's first London Agent agent W T Edgar Co. Ltd, of 51-52 Chancery Lane, who had only held the contract for one year.

Black Mask

The success of the British edition of Saucy Stories led US publisher E.F. Warner to strike a similar deal with Atlas to print a British edition of Black Mask, to be published by Atlas in the UK.

Atlas started distribution of Black Mask with the 15th June 1923 issue. This was to be printed in the US by publishers Pro-Distribution of NY until Nov 1939, when Atlas started publishing a UK edition printed by Morrison & Gibb of London & Edinburgh, as a result of the start of hostilities in World War Two. 

I have yet to locate a cover scan of the the first UK edition of Black Mask, but I assume that the US cover below is that also used for the British edition.

The US edition of first Atlas Black Mask 1923-06-15 - Courtesy of Galactic Central.

The versions of Black Mask published by Atlas - printed for Atlas in the US from 1923 until the Nov 1939 issue - are erroneously referred to as "British Reprint" versions, but actually they should be termed "UK Price Variants", because they were printed in the same print run as the US edition, in the US. From a collector's viewpoint, they are rarer than the corresponding US edition, and should logically attract as price premium.

Indicia of Saucy Stories showing US printing and UK publishing by Atlas.

UK edition of Black Mask V1 #2, July 1 1923 - courtesy of Galactic Central

US Version for comparison  - courtesy of Galactic Central

In addition to distributing the US edition of MacFadden's Physical Culture, Atlas struck a deal to carry MacFadden's book range also. The back cover of Aug 1 1923 Saucy Stories UK edition carries ads for Bernarr MacFadden's self-improvement books, as Atlas continued to style itself "The American Magazine Depot", a term first adopted the previous summer . 

Dexter also had his eye on officially distributing the pulps published by MacFadden, who was the owner of True Detective and True Romances, amongst others.

By 1924, Atlas was starting to be recognized as a force in the publishing industry. The Newspaper Press Directory for 1924 listed Atlas as the publisher of Black Mask[3], but omitted mention of the other Atlas publication Saucy Stories. Black Mask had acquired a certain respectability due to the quality of its writers, but Saucy Stories was seen as decidedly down-market. A letter in the Sporting Times of 5th July 1924 read: 

"She was reading. it was when I saw what she was reading that I got the shock of life. It was a magazine called Saucy Stories"

Publisher Walter S Dexter had laid the foundation for a strong American magazine import business, but to be successful he needed institutional respectability and the Anglo-American Chamber of Commerce would provide that in 1925.

© Ian Baker 2024

[1] Summer 1922 edition of industry paper Mainly About Books (M.A.B.)

[2] Source: Mearns Leader, Kincardinshire, Scotland.  Not clear why Saucy Stories British edition was cheaper than the American imports, especially as the cover price was 9d.

[3] Newspaper Press Directory  -  1924  (p 232)