Henry Steeger III (May 26, 1903,

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

– December 25, 1990) was an American magazine editor and publisher. He co-founded

Popular Publications Popular Publications was one of the largest publishers of pulp magazines during its existence, at one point publishing 42 different titles per month. Company titles included detective fiction, detective, adventure novel, adventure, Romance nove ...

in 1930, one of the major publishers of

pulp magazine Pulp magazines (also referred to as "the pulps") were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 to the late 1950s. The term "pulp" derives from the cheap wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed. In contrast, magazine ...

s, with former classmate Harold S. Goldsmith. Steeger handled editorial matters while Goldsmith took care of the business side. Both were veterans of the

business. Steeger had edited war pulps at

Dell Publishing Dell Publishing Company, Inc. is an American publisher of books, magazines and comic books, that was founded in 1921 by George T. Delacorte Jr. with $10,000 (approx. $145,000 in 2021), two employees and one magazine title, ''I Confess'', and ...

while Goldsmith had served as an editor at

A. A. Wyn's Magazine Publishers Magazine Publishers was a pulp magazine publishing house established by Harold Hersey and later owned by A. A. Wyn in 1929. Under Wyn, it was known as "Ace Magazines", hence titles such as ''Ace Mystery'' and ''Ace Sports''. They also used the n ...

. Steeger's new firm launched four titles which debuted on the newsstands with cover dates of October 1930. '' Battle Aces'' was the only title to survive and more titles were produced with the ensuing months. With '' Horror Stories'' and ''

Terror Tales ''Terror Tales'' was the name of two United States, American publications: a pulp magazine of the weird menace genre of the 1930s, and a horror comic in the 1960s and 1970s. Pulp magazine ''Terror Tales'' was originally published by Popular Publ ...

'', Steeger started the "

shudder pulp Weird menace is a subgenre of horror fiction and detective fiction that was popular in the pulp magazines of the 1930s and early 1940s. The weird menace pulps, also known as shudder pulps, generally featured stories in which the hero was pitted ...

" (or "weird menace") genre. Although short lived, this genre was responsible for some of the most striking cover art of the Pulp Era. The over-the-top stories of torture and titillation however, led the public to look down on the fiction found in the pulp magazines. Steeger created the long-running pulp character ''

The Spider The Spider is an American pulp-magazine hero of the 1930s and 1940s. The character was created by editor Harry Steeger and written by a variety of authors for 118 monthly issues of '' The Spider'' from 1933 to 1943. A 119th Spider novel manuscr ...

'' and published it as a Popular publication from 1933 to 1943. The series was published monthly and ran for 118 issues. (A 119th issue was published years later.) Steeger also edited (anonymously) the last issues of '' Black Mask.'' He died on Christmas Day, 1990 at age 87.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Steeger, Harry American pulp magazine publishers (people) 1903 births 1990 deaths People from New York City