page_title: Scientific Detective Monthly
section_title: Contents
hierarchical_section_title: Scientific Detective Monthly / Contents
caption_attribution_description: English: Cover of the March 1931 issue of Amazing Detective Stories. Artist unknown.
context_page_description: Scientific Detective Monthly was a pulp magazine that published fifteen issues beginning in January 1930. It was launched by Hugo Gernsback as part of his second venture into science-fiction magazine publishing, and was intended to focus on detective and mystery stories with a scientific element. Many of the stories involved contemporary science without any imaginative elements—for example, a story in the first issue turned on the use of a bolometer to detect a black girl blushing—but there were also one or two science fiction stories in every issue.
  The title was changed to Amazing Detective Tales with the June 1930 issue, perhaps to avoid the word "scientific", which may have given readers the impression of "a sort of scientific periodical", in Gernsback's words, rather than a magazine intended to entertain. At the same time, the editor—Hector Grey—was replaced by David Lasser, who was already editing Gernsback's other science-fiction magazines. The title change apparently did not make the magazine a success, and Gernsback closed it down with the October issue.
context_section_description: The stories in Scientific Detective Monthly were almost always detective stories, but they were only occasionally science fiction, as in many cases the science appearing in the stories already had practical applications. In the first issue, for example, "The Mystery of the Bulawayo Diamond", by Arthur B. Reeve, mentions unusual science, but the mystery is solved by the use of a bolometer to detect a blush on the face of a black woman. The murderer in "The Campus Murder Mystery", by Ralph W. Wilkins, freezes the body to conceal the manner of death; a chemical catalyst and electrical measurements of palm sweat provide the scientific elements in two other stories in the same issue. The only genuine science fiction story in the first issue is "The Perfect Counterfeit" by Captain S.P. Meek, in which a matter duplicator has been used to counterfeit paper money. Van Dine's Philo Vance novel, The Bishop Murder Case, began serialization in the first issue, which probably assisted sales, since the hardcover edition of the novel, which had appeared only a few months previously, had sold well. It was not science fiction, however, and throughout the magazine's run, only one or two stories per issue include elements that would qualify them as science fiction. Mike Ashley, a historian of the field, suggests that Gernsback was more interested in stories about the science of detection than in imaginary science: most of Scientific Detective Monthly's contents were gadget stories, of a kind which Gernsback had been publishing in his other magazines for some time. The cover for the first issue, by Jno Ruger, showed a detective using an electronic device to measure the reactions of a suspect.
  Later issues included stories by some writers who either were already well known to readers of science fiction or would soon become so, including Lloyd Arthur Eshbach, David H. Keller, Ed Earl Repp, Neil R. Jones, and Edmond Hamilton, though even these stories were not always science fiction. Hamilton's "The Invisible Master", for example, describes a way to become invisible, but at the end of the story the science is revealed to be a hoax, and the story is straightforward detective fiction. Clark Ashton Smith, later to be better known for his fantasy than for science fiction, contributed "Murder in the Fourth Dimension" to the October 1930 issue; the protagonist uses the fourth dimension to dispose of his victim's corpse.
  As well as fiction, there were some non-fiction departments, including readers' letters (even in the first issue—Gernsback obtained letters by advertising the magazine to readers who subscribed to his other magazines), book reviews, and miscellaneous crime or science-related fillers. The first issue included a test of the readers' powers of observation: it showed a crime scene, which the readers were supposed to study, and then posed questions to see how much they could remember of the details. There was also a questionnaire about science, which asked about scientific facts mentioned in the stories, and a "Science-Crime Notes" section containing news items about science and crime. Gernsback's editorial argued that science would eventually end crime, and suggested that both the police and criminals would make growing use of scientific innovations in the future. Gernsback included on the masthead the names of several experts on crime, such as Edwin Cooley, a professor of criminology at Fordham University; he also listed members of his staff on the masthead with made-up titles: C.P. Mason, a member of his editorial staff, was listed as "Scientific Criminologist", for example.
  Following the sale, Bamber filled the magazine with ordinary detective fiction, including Edgar Wallace's The Feathered Serpent.
  The first few covers of the magazine did not advertise the names of the authors whose work was inside, which was probably a mistake as existing science fiction readers might have been attracted by the names of writers with whom they were familiar. Conversely, the readers who might have been interested in the more sedate topics covered by t
caption: Cover of the March 1931 issue, now titled Amazing Detective Stories; the artist is likely Lyman Anderson [fr]
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