Detective Tales

Detective Tales magazine has an interesting history of name changes and format changes that makes it a little difficult to track down these days. When you look for Detective Tales magazines, you might also search for Real Detective Tales and Real Detective Tales and Mystery Stories.

Detective Tales magazine began publication in late 1922 as a standard sized pulp of little acclaim. The publisher of Detective Tales was Rural Publications at that time. It continued on in that format before a companion magazine, Weird Tales, was acquired and the two magazines were published together until mid-1924.

Rural Publications ran into difficulty and Detective Tales was sold to Real Detective Tales, Inc and the name was consequently changed, first to Real Detective Tales and then later to Real Detective Tales and Mystery Stories. The format of the magazine was also changed from the small-sized pulp to larger, quarto-sized magazines.

It continued on in this format until 1931 when it transformed itself from a fiction magazine to a predominantly non-fiction magazine titled Real Detective. Real Detective still contained the occasional fiction story until the last issue of the magazine was released in 1934.