Wonder Stories

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This article is about the magazine. For the book by Hans Christian Andersen, see Wonder Stories Told for Children.

Wonder Stories was a science fiction pulp magazine which published 66 issues between 1930 and 1936, edited by Hugo Gernsback.

There have been other magazines containing Wonder Stories in their name, which are closely related to this one.

Gernsback founded Air Wonder Stories and Science Wonder Stories in 1929, after he lost control of Amazing Stories. These published 11 and 12 issues respectively, before Air Wonder Stories merged with Science Wonder Stories, which was then renamed just Wonder Stories (beginning with Volume 2 No 1).

In 1936, Wonder Stories was sold to Thrilling Publications. To match with their other pulps (e.g. Thrilling Western, Thrilling Detective) the title was changed to Thrilling Wonder Stories. This is considered to be a continuation of Wonder Stories since it began with Volume 8 No 1. This published a further 112 issues, closing in 1955.

The Gernsback Wonder Stories were all oversized, premium, pulp magazines with covers by Frank R. Paul and with a similar editorial slant to Amazing Stories. Thrilling Wonder Stories was standard pulp size and took a more junior slant, shown especially with a "Sergeant Saturn" policing the letters page. However it was to publish many major figures, including Stanley G. Weinbaum, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert A. Heinlein, A. E. Van Vogt, Theodore Sturgeon, L. Sprague de Camp and Henry Kuttner.

Related publications included British and Canadian reprints, Science Wonder Quarterly (3 issues), Wonder Stories Quarterly (14 issues), Wonder Stories Annual (4 issues) and two reprint issues from 1957 and 1963.