The ORIGINAL SCIENCE FICTION STORIES

   US DIGEST-size magazine, 38 issues, 1953-May 1960. Published by Columbia Publications; ed Robert A.W. LOWNDES. A companion magazine to FUTURE FICTION and SCIENCE FICTION QUARTERLY, TOSFS began life as a one-shot simply entitled Science Fiction Stories, though some commentators see this as a mere continuation, after a gap, of the magazine SCIENCE FICTION (1939-41), also ed Lowndes. \#2 followed in 1954, and the magazinecommenced regular publication in Jan 1955. The Sep 1955 issue added an advertising slogan, "The Original", to the title on the cover, and the magazine subsequently became known by that name, although technically its title remained Science Fiction Stories. Like its companion magazines, TOSFS existed on a very small editorial budget but maintained arespectable, if largely mediocre, level of quality, a little better perhaps than its stable companion Future Fiction. Serialized novels included The Tower of Zanid (1958) by L. Sprague DE CAMP and Caduceus Wild (1959 TOSFS; 1978) by Ward MOORE and Robert Bradford. Robert SILVERBERGwas the magazine's most prolific contributor. R.A. LAFFERTY made his debut here with "Day of the Glacier" (1960). The numeration of this cluster of magazines was very complex, and can be found explained in Science Fiction, Fantasy and Weird Fiction Magazines (1985) ed Marshall B. TYMN and MikeASHLEY (in their article on Science Fiction, as they prefer to treat TOSFS as a continuation of that journal). After its demise in May 1960 the title was bought by fan James V. Taurasi (FANTASY TIMES), who used it on 3 SEMIPROZINE issues - little more than FANZINES, in fact - in BEDSHEETformat in Dec 1961, Winter 1962 and Winter 1963. The UK abridged reprint edition (1957-60) had 12 numbers.

   MJE/FHP/PN