Episode 2265
The Black Cat (US magazine)
Tue, 2023-Jul-18 00:39 UTC
Length - 3:04
Direct Link
Welcome to featured Wiki of the Day where we read the summary of the featured Wikipedia article every day.
The featured article for Tuesday, 18 July 2023 is The Black Cat (US magazine).
The Black Cat was an American fiction magazine launched in 1895 by Herman Umbstaetter, initially published in Boston, Massachusetts. It published only short stories, and had a reputation for originality and for encouraging new writers. Umbstaetter’s editorial approach was unusual in several ways: the cover price was low, at five cents; he paid based on merit, not on story length; and he was willing to buy stories by new authors rather than insisting on well-known names. He frequently ran story contests to attract amateur writers. The magazine was immediately successful, and its circulation was boosted by the appearance in an early issue of “The Mysterious Card”, by Cleveland Moffett, which was so popular that two print runs of the issue it appeared in sold out.
Many well-known writers appeared in its pages. Two of the best-known were Jack London, whose 1899 story “A Thousand Deaths” sold just as he was about to give up attempting to become a writer, and Henry Miller, whose first published work was several short fiction critiques published in The Black Cat in 1919. The magazine’s icon, a black cat that appeared on almost every cover for many years, was drawn by Umbstaetter’s wife, Nelly Littlehale Umbstaetter. Others who sold stories to The Black Cat included O. Henry, Rex Stout, and Clark Ashton Smith.
In 1912, Umbstaetter sold the magazine to Samuel Cassino, the publisher of Little Folks. Cassino, and later his son, Herman, published the magazine from Salem, Massachusetts until 1919. Circulation, at about 50,000, was much lower than in Umbstaetter’s day. In 1916, a deal was struck with Essanay Studios to make films of stories from The Black Cat. The magazine was sold to Fox Film in 1919, but survived only another year. It was revived in 1922 by William Kane, but in early 1923, with Kane estimating circulation down to only 15,000, it ceased publication for good.
This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:39 UTC on Tuesday, 18 July 2023.
For the full current version of the article, see The Black Cat (US magazine) on Wikipedia.
This podcast is produced by Abulsme Productions based on Wikipedia content and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
Visit wikioftheday.com for our archives. Please subscribe to never miss an episode. On Mastodon follow us at @wikioftheday@masto.ai.
Abulsme Productions produces the current events podcast Curmudgeon's Corner as well. Check it out in your podcast player of choice.
This has been Niamh Neural. Thank you for listening to featured Wiki of the Day.
|
|
Buy WotD Stuff!!
