STREET \& SMITH

   Important US magazine publisher, established in the 19th century with various dime-novel series like Good News and The Nugget Library, and publishing early juvenile sf in the Tom Edison Jr. and Electric Bob series. The general-fiction The POPULAR MAGAZINE (1903-31) published a good few sf stories too. S\&S was particularly famous for its Westerns, including Ned Buntline's deeply influential Buffalo Bill Cody stories, which helped mythologize the West. S\&S were prominent in the splitting of PULP MAGAZINES into various genres, each aiming to have a market leader,one example being Detective Story Magazine. S\&S was also the first to carry over from dime-novel publishing the idea of a pulp magazine devoted to a single character, with the very successful The Shadow (1931-49), whose adventures bordered sometimes on sf (Walter B. GIBSON), The Avenger (Paul ERNST) and, rather closer to sf, DOC SAVAGE MAGAZINE (1933-49).WhenClayton Publishing Company, publishers of Astounding Stories (ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION) began to flounder in 1933, S\&S bought the magazine in order to fill yet another market niche. S\&S's considerable financial backing meant that ASF could pay quite good rates, get good stories, and compete strongly in the market, which it did. Later, S\&S (and editor John W. CAMPBELL Jr) added a fantasy companion magazine, UNKNOWN (later UnknownWorlds). S\&S's period of power coincided with the pulp boom; from 1948 the firm was phasing out its pulp publication and, with paperback books and tv increasingly threatening the dominance of the magazines, declining in importance (PUBLISHING). S\&S expired in 1961; its only remaining sf title, ASF, was sold to Conde Nast, the last S\&S issue being Jan 1961.

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