page_title: Amazing Stories
section_title: Origins
hierarchical_section_title: Amazing Stories / Origins
caption_attribution_description: The Vibrator of Death. By Harold F. Richards, PhD. Illustration by Frank R. Paul. The Table of Contents lists this as a scientific fiction story. See Image:Science and Invention Jan 1922 pg794.png A popular politician, Marie Denbaule, is murdered on a sabotaged amusement park ride. The story goes into great technical detail on how the ride was sped up shake Marie to death. The culprits are finally caught and more that a few fish die of mercury poisoning. The artwork shows Fran R. Paul's early background as a technical illustrator. This contrasts to his bug eyed monsters on some of the Amazing Stories covers. The writing style of the story shows the scientific and technical details Hugo Gernsback wanted from his "scientific fiction" authors. Science &amp; Invention, January 1922. Volume 9 Number 9. Image:Science and Invention Jan 1922 pg794.png Table of Contents Image:Science and Invention Jan 1922 pg796.png Electro Importing Company Image:Science and Invention Jan 1922 pg800.png Electro Importing Company Image:Science and Invention Jan 1922 pg802.png Radio News Image:Science and Invention Jan 1922 pg808.png Science in New Apartment House De Luxe Image:Science and Invention Jan 1922 pg809.png Apartment house illustration by Frank R. Paul Image:Science and Invention Jan 1922 pg822.png Spring Heels illustration by Frank R. Paul Image:Science and Invention Jan 1922 pg824.png The Vibrator of Death Image:Science and Invention Jan 1922 pg842.png Jazz from the Air Image:Science and Invention Jan 1922 pg843.png Jazz from the Air Image:Science and Invention Jan 1922 pg848.png Jazz from the Air Image:Science and Invention Jan 1922 pg850.png Jazz from the Air Image:Science and Invention Jan 1922 pg857.png Bell System, AT&amp;T Image:Science and Invention Jan 1922 pg871.png The Vibrator of Death Image:Science and Invention Jan 1922 pg872.png The Vibrator of Death Image:Science and Invention Jan 1922 pg873.png The Vibrator of Death Image:Science and Invention Jan 1922 pg875.png The Vibrator of Death Image:Science and Invention Jan 1922 pg876.png The Vibrator of Death Image:Science and Invention Jan 1922 pg877.png Radio Corporation of America Image:Science and Invention Jan 1922 pg880.png The Vibrator of Death Image:Science and Invention Jan 1922 pg881.png The Vibrator of Death Image:Science and Invention Jan 1922 pg882.png The Vibrator of Death Image:Science and Invention Jan 1922 pg883.png The Vibrator of Death Image:Science and Invention Jan 1922 pg886.png Bayer Aspirin Image:Science and Invention Jan 1922 pg887.png Practical Electrics Image:Science and Invention Jan 1922 pg888.png Consolidated Radio Call Book Published by Experimenter Publishing Company Inc. 233 Fulton Street, New York, NY. Hugo Gernsback, President; Sidney Gernsback, Treasure; R. W. DeMott, Secretary. The page numbers were on an annual basis, not per issue. This issue had pages 793 to 888. Page 824 is shown. The magazine size is 8 by 11.5 inches (20 by 29 cm).
context_page_description: Amazing Stories is an American science fiction magazine launched in April 1926 by Hugo Gernsback's Experimenter Publishing. It was the first magazine devoted solely to science fiction. Science fiction stories had made regular appearances in other magazines, including some published by Gernsback, but Amazing helped define and launch a new genre of pulp fiction.
  As of 2018, Amazing has been published, with some interruptions, for ninety-two years, going through a half-dozen owners and many editors as it struggled to be profitable. Gernsback was forced into bankruptcy and lost control of the magazine in 1929. In 1938 it was purchased by Ziff-Davis, who hired Raymond A. Palmer as editor. Palmer made the magazine successful though it was not regarded as a quality magazine within the science fiction community. In the late 1940s Amazing presented as fact stories about the Shaver Mystery, a lurid mythos that explained accidents and disaster as the work of robots named deros, which led to dramatically increased circulation but widespread ridicule. Amazing switched to a digest size format in 1953, shortly before the end of the pulp-magazine era.
context_section_description: By the end of the 19th century, stories centered on scientific inventions, and stories set in the future, were appearing regularly in popular fiction magazines. The market for short stories lent itself to tales of invention in the tradition of Jules Verne. Magazines such as Munsey's Magazine and The Argosy, launched in 1889 and 1896 respectively, carried a few science fiction stories each year. Some upmarket "slick" magazines such as McClure's, which paid well and were aimed at a more literary audience, also carried scientific stories, but by the early years of the 20th century, science fiction (though it was not yet called that) was appearing more often in the pulp magazines than in the slicks.
  In 1908, Hugo Gernsback published the first issue of Modern Electrics, a magazine aimed at the scientific hobbyist. It was an immediate success, and Gernsback began to include articles on imaginative uses of science, such as "Wireless on Saturn" (December 1908). In April 1911, Gernsback began the serialization of his science fiction novel, Ralph 124C 41+, but in 1913 he sold his interest in the magazine to his partner and launched a new magazine, Electrical Experimenter, which soon began to publish scientific fiction. In 1920 Gernsback retitled the magazine Science and Invention, and through the early 1920s he published much scientific fiction in its pages, along with non-fiction scientific articles.
  
  Gernsback had started another magazine called Practical Electrics in 1921. In 1924, he changed its name to The Experimenter, and sent a letter to 25,000 people to gauge interest in the possibility of a magazine devoted to scientific fiction; in his words, "the response was such that the idea was given up for two years." However, in 1926 he decided to go ahead, and ceased publication of The Experimenter to make room in his publishing schedule for a new magazine. The editor of The Experimenter, T. O'Conor Sloane, became the editor of Amazing Stories. The first issue appeared on 10 March 1926, with a cover date of April 1926.
caption: A "scientific fiction" story illustrated by Frank R. Paul in a 1922 issue of Science and Invention
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