10 Story Book , August 1938 and July 1934 / Anybody Can Write a Sex Novel

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As promised, today we look at a fresh scan of a delightful pulp that is quickly becoming one of my favorite titles. A few peeps have told me the title is unappetizing and scant describes the mag, but I find it charming. 10 Story Book never fails to entertain. "Intriguing Stories, Spiced With Pretty Girls" is the tagline, and it is indeed a fun formula. 10 Story Book hops from mystery to comedy to raunchy and back again and is interspersed with cheesecake, illustrations, and naughty cartoons like you might expect from gentleman's joke mags. "NO ESSAYS - NO SERIALS - JUST SNAPPY STORIES AND SNAPPIER GIRL PHOTOS". It ran from 1901 to 1940 for a run of approximately 450 issues, and the mag was published by Daily Story then Ten Story Publishing Co. One of the longer running pulps, it must of had something of a following, though it’s not really terribly common on ebay. Writers such as Dashiell Hammet, Clarke Ashton Smith, August Derleth, Carroll John Daly, Octavus Cohen and others appeared in 10 Story Book over the years. The covers almost always incorporate a photo in a red white and black scheme and often displayed movie stars.

This issue is most notable for the story screaming of the front page, “Anybody Can Write a Sex Novel” by Jack Woodford. And while I thought I’d be getting a primer on writing naughty stories, the article is something else entirely, a fun look into the mind of a pulp writer and a candid look at publishing in the late thirties. The advice is very different from what you might expect to hear in a creative writing course, but there seems to be some good advice in Woodford’s motivational approach. Splendid Stuff.

You can get the scan of this August 1938 issue here .

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In addition to the Woodford story, I also enjoyed these naughty bits, the first filled with a funky slang and the second a risqué parody of the greek theater:



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And what’s a post without a little cheesecake,eh? One thing my journeys through old magazines has taught me is that you can add girls to just about any type of magazine and make it more appealing.



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And I can’t get away from this pulp without pointing out “The Revenge of Sarras” by George Bronson-James, a very strange story of a traveling Jewish scholar, a farmer’s wife, and a very odd exchange of saliva in the church. Definitely worth a read.

Big thanks to fellow mag scanner McCoy for his splendid editing work on this issue, it really turned out great! I have a feeling his edits will be appearing regularly alongside mine on this blog for a while,as he’s really helping me to get some good work done.

And while I’m rapping on 10 Story Book, here’s an older scan I did a while back of another great issue. This time from July, 1934.



This is Ida Lupino on the cover giving the old come hither. Of note in this issue are a stories by Carroll John Daly and Otis Adelbert Kline. Sadly, there is a page missing from the Kline story (the opposite page being a photo I believe), but hopefully that will turn up sometime down the road. (scan it for me if you have it!)

The scan of 10 Story Book, July 1934 can be had here .

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Enjoy,

Darwin