pulp fiction

Pulp magazines, also called "the pulps", were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 until around 1955. The word pulp derives from the cheap wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed. In contrast, magazines printed on higher-quality paper were called "glossies" or "slicks". The typical pulp magazine was 128 pages in length, 7 by 10 in, and 0.5 in (1.3 cm) thick, with ragged, untrimmed edges. Pulps were the successors to the penny dreadfuls, dime novels, and some of the short-fiction magazines of the 19th century.