Ghost Stories

Bibliographic details

Ghost Stories was published by Bernarr Macfadden, under the imprint Constructive Publishing Co., of Dunellin, New Jersey, until the March 1930 issue, after which it was taken over by Good Story Magazine Co. of New York, which was run by Harold Hersey, who had earlier edited The Thrill Book. The editorial director of Constructive Publishing during MacFadden's ownership was Fulton Oursler; his assistants, Harry A. Keller, W. Adolphe Roberts, George Bond, Daniel Wheeler, and Arthur B. Howland, each (in that order) spent close to a year editing, though the dates of transition between them are not known. When Hersey took over, his assistant was Stuart Palmer. The magazine began as a slick, in bedsheet format and switched to pulp layout with the July 1928 issue; it remained as a pulp until the end of its run with the exception of eight issues in large pulp format from April to December 1929. There are 64 issues, with six issues per volume, except for the last volume which included only four issues. The price was 25 cents throughout; it had 128 pages when pulp-sized, and 96 pages when a bedsheet and when it was a large pulp.
No anthologies have selected their contents solely from Ghost Stories, but two magazines have done so: True Twilight Tales and Prize Ghost Stories, both published by League Publications, a subsidiary of the company that owned the rights to the original stories, MacFadden-Bartell. Prize Ghost Stories published one issue, dated 1963, and True Twilight Tales published two, dated Fall 1963 and Spring 1964. Both magazines were in large pulp format, with 96 pages, priced at 50 cents. The first issue of True Twilight Tales was edited by Helen Gardiner, who probably also was the editor of Prize Ghost Stories; the second issue of True Twilight Tales was edited by John M. Williams. There may have been other issues of both titles, as neither are numbered.