Harold Hersey

Harold Hersey was a pulp editor and publisher, and published western poet. His pulp industry observations were published in hardback as "Pulpwood Editor" (1937).

Hersey started his editing career in the early teen-years. He broke into the pulps with publisher Street & Smith later in the decade. He edited legendary pulp "The Thrill Book" for S&S in 1919. It only lasted 16 issues. It's often cited as the first all-fantasy pulp, but in actuality it blended straight drama, adventure, sea stories, mysteries, etc, while also featuring a bit of fantasy.

A few years later, Hersey joined new pulp publisher, Clayton Publications. Hersey is credited with creating "Ranch Romances", the first western-romance hybrid. "Ranch Romances" was one of the last pulps to cease publication, lasting into the early '70s.

After Clayton, Hersey had stints working for Bernarr Macfadden and the Eastern Distributing Company. In late 1928, Hersey started his own pulp chain, Magazine Publishers, also known as The Hersey Magazines. The covers sported a swastika-logo. Titles included "The Dragnet Magazine", "Sky Birds", "Fire Fighters", and "The Underworld Magazine". Some unknown disagreement with his co-founders/backers resulted in Hersey leaving the company in mid-1929. Magazine Publishers, with former Dell editor Aron Wyn at the helm, turned into the chain known as the Ace Group.

Hersey founded another chain, Good Story Magazine Company, presumably with financial backing from Macfadden. Good Story's first pulp "Gangster Stories" was an immediate hit. Within a few months, a dozen titles had been issued, including some now-rare one-shots like "Thrills of the Jungle" and "Love and War Stories". With the issue of February 1930, another gang pulp "Racketeer Stories" was introduced. The violence and lawlessness of the two gang pulps provoked outrage. Hersey was threatened with prosecution in the state of New York. The crisis passed, and the gang pulps remained the mainstay of Hersey's chain into 1934.

Throughout his remaining career, Hersey continued to test the market with new magazines. He ended up an editor-for-hire on a string of novelty magazines. He died in the '50s.