Yeah, MANHUNT was probably the best-selling fiction magazine
so far in the US, over its first few issues in 1953 which
serialized a not-terribly-long story by Spillane, then at his
height of pop. Always digest-sized (as far as I know--the
possibility there was a brief larger-sized run of issues
nudges at me), its glory days were behind it by the early
'60s (it expired altogether in the late '60s), after
apparently being a captive creature of the Scott Meredith
Literary Agency under its first owners (not that that fact
hurt the quality of its hb/noir/anomie/nihilism fiction). The
slew of CF magazines (including several imitations from
MANHUNT's publishers) that followed MANHUNT onto the stands
was about as impressive as the mass of post-GALAXY sf
magazines. While MIKE SHAYNE MYSTERY MAGAZINE was probably
seen as a potentially pretty good idea in the wake of this
burst, I wonder if AFRED HITCHCOCK'S or such shorter-lived
projects as ED MCBAIN'S MYSTERY BOOK were direct results of
the groaning, MANHUNT-influenced CF newsstands of the latter
'50s...
-----Original Message----- From: Michael Robison
Kevin Burton Smith wrote: I just picked up THE BEST FROM
MANHUNT for 50 cents in a used bookstore bin (they must have
seen me coming). It's a great little collection, which humbly
notes on the cover that it features "13 of the toughest crime
short stories ever written."
******** A great find. "Manhunt" kinda carried on after WWII
when they quit calling them pulps, didn't it? If I recall,
Gores's started out with quite a few stories in
"Manhunt."
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