A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | CH | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9
 Cover of the April 1906 issue | |
| Founder | Frank Munsey |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1882 |
| Final issue | 2016 |
Argosy was an American magazine, founded in 1882 as The Golden Argosy, a children's weekly, edited by Frank Munsey and published by E. G. Rideout. Munsey took over as publisher when Rideout went bankrupt in 1883, and after many struggles made the magazine profitable. He shortened the title to The Argosy in 1888 and targeted an audience of men and boys with adventure stories. In 1894 he switched it to a monthly schedule and in 1896 he eliminated all non-fiction and started using cheap pulp paper, making it the first pulp magazine. Circulation had reached half a million by 1907, and remained strong until the 1930s. The name was changed to Argosy All-Story Weekly in 1920 after the magazine merged with All-Story Weekly, another Munsey pulp, and from 1929 it became just Argosy.
In 1925 Munsey died, and the publisher, the Frank A. Munsey Company, was purchased by William Dewart, who had worked for Munsey. By 1942 circulation had fallen to no more than 50,000, and after a failed effort to revive the magazine by including sensational non-fiction, it was sold that year to Popular Publications, another pulp magazine publisher. Popular converted it from pulp to slick format, and initially attempted to make it a fiction-only magazine, but gave up on this within a year. Instead it became a men's magazine, carrying fiction and feature articles aimed at men. Circulation soared and by the early 1950s was well over one million.
Early contributors included Horatio Alger, Oliver Optic, and G. A. Henty. During the pulp era, many famous writers appeared in Argosy, including O. Henry, James Branch Cabell, Albert Payson Terhune, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Erle Stanley Gardner, Zane Grey, Robert E. Howard, and Max Brand. Argosy was regarded as one of the most prestigious publications in the pulp market, along with Blue Book, Adventure and Short Stories. After the transition to slick format it continued to publish fiction, including science fiction by Robert Heinlein, Arthur Clarke, and Ray Bradbury. From 1948 to 1958 it published a series by Gardner called "The Court of Last Resort" which examined the cases of dozens of convicts who maintained their innocence, and succeeding in overturning many of the convictions. NBC adapted the series for television in 1957.
Popular sold Argosy to David Geller in 1972, and in 1978 Geller sold it to the Filipacchi Group, which closed it at the end of the year. The magazine has been revived several times, most recently in 2016.
Publication history
The Golden Argosy
In the late 1870s, Frank Munsey was working in Augusta, Maine, as the manager of the local Western Union office. He helped a friend get a job at a publisher in Augusta, and after a couple of years his friend moved to New York City to work for another publishing company. Munsey was becoming more familiar with the publishing industry during this time, and decided he wanted to launch a magazine of his own. He had some difficulty in getting anyone to agree to invest, but eventually persuaded a stockbroker he knew to put in $2,500 ($79,000 in 2023), of which $500 was a loan to Munsey. Munsey invested $500 of his own, and his friend in New York City added another $1,000, making a total of $4,000 ($126,000 in 2023) in capital.[1][2] Munsey resigned from Western Union, and moved to New York on September 23, 1882, bringing with him manuscripts he had bought for the magazine before leaving Augusta.[3]
Once in New York, Munsey quickly realized that the cost estimates he had made, based on what he had been able to learn while in Maine, were unrealistically low.[4][5] His original plan for the magazine had been to make it a close copy of Golden Days, a weekly paper for children published in Philadelphia by James Elverson,[6] and to include lithographed covers and internal illustrations.[4][5] He abandoned these ideas and came up with a simplified approach, still based on Golden Days, that he believed could be made profitable. He wrote to the stockbroker who had promised $2,500 to get the funds sent to him, but received no reply, and since this made it impossible to start the magazine as planned, Munsey released his New York friend from his promise of investment. This left Munsey with only about $40 ($1,260 in 2023), along with the manuscripts he had in hand, which had cost over $500 to acquire. He began looking for a publisher who would back the new magazine, and eventually persuaded E. G. Rideout to take it on. The first issue, titled The Golden Argosy, with Munsey as editor and manager, was dated December 9, 1882;[4][5] it was eight pages long and cost five cents ($1.58 in 2023).[7] Subscribers were offered a set of colored chromolithographs along with their subscription.[4]
Five months later Rideout went bankrupt. Munsey had not drawn all his salary, and Rideout had borrowed money from him as well, so he was owed about $1,000 ($33,000 in 2023) by the bankrupt company. He claimed the magazine's title and subscription list in return for his debt, succeeding over a competing claim from a publisher who would have merged the magazine's subscriptions into those of his own publication.[8][9][10] The first issue with Munsey as publisher was dated September 8, 1883.[11] Munsey again was reduced to a few dollars, but he was able to borrow $300 ($9,800 in 2023) from Oscar Holway, a banker in Augusta who was a friend.[8][9] At about this time he bought some stories from Malcolm Douglas, but when Douglas came to collect his payment Munsey offered him the job of editor, at $10 ($300 in 2023) per week, in lieu of payment for the stories. Douglas accepted.[8]
| January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1882 | Dates: | 9,16,23,30 | |||||||||||
| Volume: | 1/1 to 1/4 | ||||||||||||
| Issue: | 1 to 4 | ||||||||||||
| 1883 | Dates: | 6,13,20,27 | 3,10,17,24 | 3,10,17,24,31 | 7,14,21,28 | 5,12,19,26 | 2,9,16,23,30 | 7,14,21,28 | 4,11,18,25 | 1,8,15,22,29 | 6,13,20,27 | 3,10,17,24 | 1,8,15,22,29 |
| Volume: | 1/5 to 1/8 | 1/9 to 1/12 | 1/13 to 1/17 | 1/18 to 1/21 | 1/22 to 1/25 | 1/26 to 1/30 | 1/31 to 1/34 | 1/35 to 1/38 | 1/39 to 1/43 | 1/44 to 1/47 | 1/48 to 1/51 | 1/52, 2/1 to 2/4 | |
| Issue: | 5 to 8 | 9 to 12 | 13 to 17 | 18 to 21 | 22 to 25 | 26 to 30 | 31 to 34 | 35 to 38 | 39 to 43 | 44 to 47 | 48 to 51 | 52 to 56 | |
| 1884 | Dates: | 5,12,19,26 | 2,9,26,23 | 1,8,25,22,29 | 5,12,19,26 | 3,10,17,23,31 | 7,14,21,28 | 5,12,19,26 | 1,9,26,23,30 | 6,13,20,27 | 4,11,18,25 | 1,8,15,22,29 | 6,13,20,27 |
| Volume: | 2/5 to 2/8 | 2/9 to 2/12 | 2/13 to 2/17 | 2/18 to 2/21 | 2/22 to 2/26 | 2/29 to 2/30 | 2/31 to 2/34 | 2/35 to 2/39 | 2/40 to 2/43 | 2/44 to 2/47 | 2/48 to 2/52 | 3/1 to 3/4 | |
| Issue: | 57 to 60 | 61 to 64 | 65 to 69 | 70 to 73 | 74 to 78 | 79 to 82 | 83 to 86 | 87 to 91 | 92 to 95 | 96 to 99 | 100 to 104 | 105 to 108 | |
| 1885 | Dates: | 3,10,17,24,31 | 7,14,21,28 | 7,14,21,28 | 4,11,18,25 | 2,9,16,23,30 | 6,13,20,27 | 4,11,18,25 | 1,8,15,22,29 | 5,12,19,26 | 3,10,17,24,31 | 7,14,21,28 | 5,12,19,26 |
| Volume: | 3/5 to 3/9 | 3/10 to 3/13 | 3/14 to 3/17 | 3/18 to 3/21 | 3/22 to 3/26 | 3/27 to 3/30 | 3/31 to 3/34 | 3/35 to 3/39 | 3/40 to 3/43 | 3/44 to 3/48 | 3/49 to 3/52 | 4/1 to 4/4 | |
| Issue: | 109 to 113 | 114 to 117 | 118 to 121 | 122 to 125 | 126 to 130 | 131 to 134 | 135 to 138 | 139 to 143 | 144 to 147 | 148 to 152 | 153 to 156 | 157 to 160 | |
| 1886 | Dates: | 2,9,16,23,30 | 6,13,20,27 | 6,13,20,27 | 3,10,17,24 | 1,8,15,22,29 | 5,12,19,26 | 3,10,17,24,31 | 7,14,21,28 | 4,11,18,25 | 2,9,16,23,30 | 6,13,20,27 | 4,11,18,25 |
| Volume: | 4/5 to 4/9 | 4/10 to 4/13 | 4/14 to 4/17 | 4/18 to 4/21 | 4/22 to 4/26 | 4/27 to 4/30 | 4/31 to 4/35 | 4/36 to 4/39 | 4/40 to 4/43 | 4/44 to 4/48 | 4/49 to 4/52 | 5/1 to 5/4 | |
| Issue: | 161 to 165 | 166 to 169 | 170 to 173 | 174 to 177 | 178 to 182 | 183 to 186 | 187 to 191 | 192 to 195 | 196 to 199 | 200 to 204 | 205 to 208 | 209 to 212 | |
| 1887 | Dates: | 1,8,15,22,29 | 5,12,19,26 | 5,12,19,26 | 2,9,16,23,30 | 7,14,212,28 | 4,11,18,25 | 2,9,16,23,30 | 6,13,20,27 | 3,10,17,23 | 1,8,15,22,29 | 5,12,19,26 | 3,10,17,24,31 |
| Volume: | 5/5 to 5/9 | 5/10 to 5/13 | 5/14 to 5/17 | 5/18 to 5/22 | 5/23 to 5/26 | 5/27 to 5/30 | 5/31 to 5/35 | 5/36 to 5/39 | 5/40 to 5/43 | 5/44 to 5/48 | 5/49 to 5/52 | 6/1 to 6/5 | |
| Issue: | Zdroj:https://en.wikipedia.org?pojem=Argosy_(magazine)