Veronica Talks Horror Stories Magazine

Horror Stories was Popular Publications’ most unabashed “weird-menace” showcase, launched in January 1935 as a sister to Terror Tales and Dime Mystery Magazine and ending in April 1941. Conceived under editor Rogers Terrill, the magazine codified the pulps’ shudder formula: an apparent supernatural outrage, relentless peril, and ultimately a (barely) plausible human explanation. Its appeal was intensified by lurid covers—often by John Newton Howitt—whose tableaux of bondage, masks, and mad science became a visual shorthand for the genre’s feverish stakes. Across its run, Horror Stories courted specialists in menace and momentum: Hugh B. Cave, Arthur J. Burks, Arthur Leo Zagat, Norvell W. Page, and Ray Cummings. The blend of breathless pacing and stagey shock made it a newsstand phenomenon in 1935, monthly at first and then bimonthly from 1936 through its wartime demise. Within the Popular Publications line, it functioned as the purest expression of Terrill’s “mystery-horror-credibility” rule, pushing physical hazard and eroticized threat as far as censors and readers would tolerate, yet keeping the solutions rooted in human depravity rather than ghosts. Historically, the magazine matters for crystallizing the weird-menace aesthetic at its peak, training a generation of writers in compressed, high-torque storytelling and providing iconic imagery that later bled into 1940s crime and 1950s horror comics. Today its issues—especially 1935–1937 numbers—are prized by collectors for content and cover art; and its tales remain case studies in how pulp technique manufactures dread: the swift hook, the escalating trap, and the last-page unmasking that converts the monstrous into the monstrous-human. Here are my five standout tales from Horror Stories “Her Lover — Death!” — Wyatt Blassingame — January 1935. A marquee piece from the inaugural issue that fixed the magazine’s house style of feverish menace with rational unwind. “Mate for a Monster” — Hugh B. Cave — March 1935. Early cornerstone by one of the line’s most prolific masters; repeatedly cited in contents lists and reprints. “Death Rocks the Cradle” — John H. Knox — October 1935. A fan-favorite Knox showcase that appears front-and-center on dealer and reprint notes for this issue. “The Dead Hate the Living” — Wayne Rogers — December 1936–January 1937. The lead story in the winter double-date number; its unforgettable title keeps echoing in later horror culture. “The Mole Men Want Your Eyes” — Frederick C. Davis — April–May 1938. Notorious even among shudder-pulp aficionados; later issued as a chapbook and often singled out in histories.

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