Publishers: Hugo Gernsback

We now have most of the cover images from ELECTRICAL EXPERIMENTER and its successor SCIENCE AND INVENTION.

We also have most of the early cover images from Gernsback's other technical titles such as MODERN ELECTRICS, PRACTICAL ELECTRICS, and THE EXPERIMENTER, and earlier issues of his radio magazines RADIO NEWS and RADIO-CRAFT, and his short-wave and television magazines; some of them continued to be published into the latter part of the 20th Century. Finally, a few issues of some miscellaneous titles like FRENCH HUMOR, SEXOLOGY, and YOUR BODY.

Special thanks to Dennis Lien, Reference Librarian at UMinn, and to OCLC's FirstSearch facility for the publication information given above for some of the titles. Thanks to Guy Gordon for some additional corrections and clarifications. We still have more work to do.

• The Gernsback Days by Mike Ashley is a discussion of Gernsback's influence on science fiction and an overview of the SF of that time.
• The Gernsback papers at Syracuse University: https://library.syr.edu/digital/guides/g/gernsback_h.htm.
• The bankruptcy of Gernsback's company Experimenter Publishing is covered in detail in a wikipedia article created by another Gernsback enthusiast.
• The World Radio History Bookshelf.
• Wikipedia is also the place to find a detailed history of RADIO NEWS, both as a Gernsback magazine and in its later history. Ziff-Davis eventually became the publisher of this magazine, and in the 1970's it, and its younger sibling POPULAR ELECTRONICS, can be said to have started the personal computer revolution. [Thanks, Michael Holley!]
• Twenty-four issues of the ELECTRICAL EXPERIMENTER were one online here as individual PDF files, cover and contents! May be gone.
• Gernsback's most important science fiction / futuristic prediction novel is Ralph 124C 41+: A Romance of the Year 2660. Apparently there is a hardcover edition at only a slightly higher price. The e-book version should be available for free if you look around; it's fully in the public domain.
• A discussion of Gernsback's work as a pioneer in wireless communication, especially his early assistance to ham radio operators, appeared in the ARRL's magazine QST in the 1960's, and was updated and reprinted in the April 2008 issue. You can find this today at John Dilks, K2TQN's website.
• Gernsback's "Ultimate World" has been dragged back from obscurity, thanks to Patrick Merchant (original, 1997) and the Internet Archive, via John Mark Ockerbloom's wonderful Online Books website.
• Short discussion of Gernsback's career, with pictures, on the PulpWorld site.
• Hugo Gernsback, skeptical crusader against fraudulent pseudo-science: five-page article from THE SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, but you must now be a subscriber to read this online.
• David Zondy's blog once had an article on Gernsback's radio publications. I can no longer find it, but he has a ton of Gernsbackian material on the reconstructed version. Go and wander.
• Gernsback on "How to Write 'Science' Stories," originally published in WRITER'S DIGEST in 1930 and republished in 1994 in SCIENCE FICTION STUDIES.
• Many more details on Gernsback, with articles and cover illustrations, particularly in regard to his connection with E. R. Burroughs. Well worth a visit.
• A reprint of the special issue of Radio-Craft: 50 Years of Radio : March 1938 (Jubilee Souvenir Number 9, Vol 9).
• For collectors and enthusiasts of early radio, there is a reprint of the Official Radio Service Manual and Complete Directory of All Commercial Wiring Diagrams, 1930, which builds on the materials published in RADIO NEWS and especially in RADIO-CRAFT.
• The quintessential Gernsback book: One Thousand and One Formulas.
• The Mechanics of Wonder is Gary Westfahl's serious study of that period of SF. He argues that "Hugo Gernsback, for decades a derided figure, was the true creator of the genre, and [he] examines the way in which the Gernsback tradition was adopted and modified by later magazine editors and early critics."
• One volume of a projected series of reprint anthologies of classic SF stories, named in honor of Gernsback, was published, focusing on 1926. There are copies available.
• The ultimate guide to SF of this period has to be Bleiler and Bleiler, Science-Fiction: The Gernsback Years : A Complete Coverage of the Genre Magazines Amazing, Astounding, Wonder, and Others from 1926 Through 1936.
• More books about Gernsback. on Amazon.
• The best way to find old, vintage, and original Gernsback-related materials is to search eBay.

Update history:

• 1 September 2020: Updated links and made compatible with new display system software.
• 29 April 2012: Updated with more information.
• 9 September 2002: This page created.