Disappearing Magazines

We’ve become sadly familiar with the experience of first-rate print magazines vanishing from the shelves, because of declining circulation. The biggest loss in recent years was probably that of Sherlock, a splendid magazine, which under the editorship of David Stuart Davies covered the whole world of crime fiction, not just Sherlockiana. But after several successful years, the owner lost heart. Unfortunately, the trend of disappearance isn’t confined to print publications. A couple of worthwhile ezine projects have faltered in the last year or so.

One was Cobwebby Bottles, produced by fellow author and blogger Rafe McGregor. This had a Sherlockian emphasis, and was really very promising. Now comes the news that Crime Fiction Gazette, the brainchild of rare book specialist and new novelist Paul Moy is also coming to an end after only two issues. A pity.

The snag is that producing print magazines takes a considerable financial investment, and even with ezines, there has to be a significant input of time and effort if the publication is to be sustained. It’s hard work, and I can well understand why those involved give up.

On a happier note, there are still various magazines available which do a terrific job of discussing the genre, and they deserve the support of crime fans everywhere. In the US, I can think of Mystery Scene, Deadly Pleasures, Give Me That Old-Time Detection and The Strand. In the UK, we have CADS, which I think is quite brilliant, and also excellent online resources such as Shots and Crime Time. I like all of them, and admire all the editors who do such a good job with them – but I’m sure there is room for fresh publications too.

Forgotten Stories - Loel Yeo and Hylton Cleaver

Patti Abbott’s ‘Forgotten’ series focuses this week on short stories. I’ve decided to highlight two obscure but marvellous stories by unknown authors which I’d never heard of until they were exhumed by Jack Adrian in his brilliant anthology Detective Stories from the Strand Magazine. This collection was published in 1991 and benefited from an introduction by the great Julian Symons. Adrian, who is clearly very knowledgeable about the genre, also credited the support of his editor at OUP, Michael Cox, whose untimely death last week I noted on Saturday.

In ‘Inquest’ by Loel Yeo, a chance meeting on a train with a man last seen two years earlier leads to revelations about an inquest and its aftermath. Nobody seems to know anything about Yeo – Symons thought the name ‘surely a pseudonym?’ Certainly, this is a very good story indeed.

‘By Kind Permission of the Murdered Man’ by Hylton Cleaver is equally impressive, a sort of variation on the old ‘perfect crime’ theme. I’d never heard of Cleaver either, but according to Adrian, an industrious and impressive researcher, he wrote mainly boys’ fiction, with a few well-crafted crime stories for adults on the side.

Yeo’s story first appeared in the magazine in 1932; Cleaver’s came out two years later. But despite their age, these stories definitely deserve to be remembered, as do the rest of the entries in Adrian’s book.