 Fantasy and occult fiction had often appeared in popular magazines before the twentieth century , but the first magazine to specialize in the genre , Weird Tales , appeared in 1923 and by the 1930s was the genre 's industry leader . In 1939 , two magazines were launched in the same niche : one was Unknown , from Street & Smith ; the other was Strange Stories , published by Standard Magazines and edited by Mort Weisinger , who was already editing Thrilling Wonder Stories and Startling Stories for Standard . Weisinger obtained stories from many authors who contributed to Weird Tales , including August Derleth , Henry Kuttner , and Robert Bloch , who between them accounted for 40 of the 148 stories the magazine printed over its thirteen issues . Critics consider little of the fiction memorable . Among the better @-@ received stories were two by Kuttner : " Cursed be the City " and " The Citadel of Darkness " in the April and August 1939 issues respectively ; " Logoda 's Heads " , by Derleth , which science fiction historian Robert Weinberg described as " perhaps Derleth 's best weird fantasy for any magazine " ; and some stories by Manly Wade Wellman in the early issues . Other contributors included Eric Frank Russell , C. L. Moore , and Seabury Quinn . There were no serialized novels ; at the time , Standard 's policy forbade them . Weinberg described the covers by Standard 's in @-@ house artists , Rudolph Belarski and Earle K. Bergey , as " among the worst ever seen on any pulp " . The magazine was an attempt to imitate Weird Tales , but Weisinger was never able to give it any distinctive character of its own . It received little assistance from its sister magazines in Standard 's publishing stable ; typically each magazine carried advertisements for other Standard publications , but Startling Stories and Thrilling Wonder Stories rarely mentioned Strange Stories in this way . 
