1926 Science fiction has been traced as far back in literature as Aesop and deep beyond that into pre-literary myth. As a modern fictional genre it was given its form by one patriarchal figure, and one magazine: Hugo Gernsback and Amazing Stories.
Gernsback (1884–1967) was born in Luxembourg and emigrated to the US in 1905. A pioneer of radio and TV technology (and an inventor), he defined what would be known as ‘science fiction’ (he coined the term – after an unhappy flirtation with ‘scientifiction’, which never really caught on). In Gernsback’s definition, it was factually hard – not what H.G. Wells called ‘scientific romance’. Gernsback’s favourite explanation was the equation:
Gernsback’s most famous contribution to the genre was the similarly algebraically entitled Ralph 124C 41+, first published in 1911 (the title is acronymic, like the modern bumper sticker, or texting: ‘one to foresee for one’). Essentially it was a tutorial on the author’s beloved new technology. Some of his foreseeings, such as planes travelling at the speed of sound, hit the mark. Others, such as Meteoro-Towers (weather control stations) are, alas, still SF.
The first issue of Amazing Stories contained items by Verne, Wells and Poe. It cost 25¢ and was printed on pulp paper, with a coloured cover illustration (earth being hit by a Saturnian planet) by Frank R. Paul – later to become a leading SF illustrator. The first issue came out on 10 March 1926, with a cover date of 1 April, which enabled it to stay on drugstore racks for six rather than four weeks.
Within a year, the magazine recruited a readership of 100,000. It was less successful in recruiting top-rate contributors, largely because of Gernsback’s parsimony. It was not until the 1950s, in other hands (Gernsback surrendered editorship in 1929), that Amazing Stories began featuring the likes of Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke.
The significance of Amazing Stories was its being the first all-SF magazine, and its laying down clearly the literary space the genre would colonise. Gernsback created the genre that others would fill.