Wonder Stories

Wonder Stories was an early science fiction magazine which, under several titles, published 200 issues between 1929 and 1955. It was founded by Hugo Gernsback in 1929 as two separate magazines, Air Wonder Stories and Science Wonder Stories; these were merged in 1930 as Wonder Stories. Gernsback sold the magazine in 1936 to Thrilling Publications, which renamed it to Thrilling Wonder Stories and continued to publish it until 1955. The editors under Gernsback's ownership were David Lasser, who worked hard to improve the quality of the fiction, and, from mid-1933, Charles D. Hornig. Some well-received fiction was published by both Lasser and Hornig, but Hornig's efforts in particular were overshadowed by the success of Astounding Stories which had become the leading magazine in the new field of science fiction. Under Thrilling Publications the magazine was initially unable to improve its quality, and for a period in the early 1940s was especially juvenile in presentation. Later editors began to improve the fiction again, and by the end of the 1940s, in the opinion of some science fiction historians, the magazine briefly rivalled Astounding.