Authentic Memories 2: ‘The Magazine of Tomorrow’
I first encountered the British sf magazine Authentic Science Fiction in 1978, when over the course of several visits to the Vintage Magazine Shop in London I found three issues (Nos. 1, 41, and 55). Authentic was published between 1951 and 1957, and ran to 85 issues in total. I wanted more – but how to get them? If I had to depend on what could be found in the shops I knew in London, then it would take a very long time indeed to build my collection.
The solution was, of course, through mail-order. I didn’t know any dealers – but that was soon to change. I had seen a reference to the British Science Fiction Association – and joined. (The BSFA is, I am glad to say, still with us – and still has me as a member.) I was welcomed and sent a little pale-blue membership card (long since lost, alas) and my first mailing of the Association’s duplicated magazines Vector (its serious-minded journal) and Matrix, much more informal, which acted as a forum for members (and which used an eye-challenging microscopic font). Both were great fun to read – and often informative, too.
I noticed that Matrix published letters from members, so wrote in to say I wanted some old British sf magazines. I promptly received a list from a dealer in second-hand sf books and magazines – and became a regular customer. He offered a batch of Authentics for sale, which I snapped up. There were several of the single novel issues: Ten Years to Oblivion by Clem Macartney (No. 12); Beam of Terror by Roy Sheldon (No. 13); The Moon Is Heaven by H.J. Campbell (No. 16); and two by a name I recognised as a steady contributor to the Nova magazines, Francis G. Rayer: Coming of the Darakua (No. 17) and Earth Our New Eden (No. 20).
As its numbering advanced, I could trace Authentic’s development. What started as a line of paperback novels gradually took on the characteristics of a monthly magazine. A contents page listed an editor: L.G. Holmes. A column by American fan Forrest J. Ackerman was introduced, and readers’ letters were printed. There was also a technical editor, H.J. Campbell, who eventually succeeded Holmes as editor. From No. 29 (January 1953) Authentic changed its format and emerged as a ‘proper’ sf magazine with each issue consisting of several stories, editorial, non-fiction pieces, news, readers’ letters, and book reviews. Cover artwork improved hugely, although the first few were garish and frequently oddly bizarre given their science fictional context. They tended to illustrate a particular story symbolically or obliquely rather than through straightforward representation. But I liked them.
H.J. Campbell declared No. 33 (May 1953) a special issue to commemorate both that year’s British SF Convention and the coronation of Elizabeth II, boasting that Authentic was ‘beginning to rival the Romans when it comes to laying milestones’. The cover for No. 35 (July 1953) was the first of the series “From the Earth to the Stars”: ‘Accurate, scientific, exciting! This is the way it will happen.’ Over the next couple of years I accumulated a complete run of Authentic from No. 29 to its final issue No. 85 (dated October 1957). I would lay out my copies in rows and survey the magazine’s run from crude beginning through mature development to sudden demise. But apart from what I worked out by reading the editorials and taking note of changes to the logo, how the content changed and developed with different emphases on fiction and non-fiction, style of artwork, it wasn’t until three years later, in 1981, that I was able to discover more detail about Authentic and its origins, and especially about H.J. (Bert) Campbell (1925-83).
I had been given a copy of the third volume of Mike Ashley’s The History of the Science Fiction Magazine (1976). Ashley described how Authentic had been the creation of Gordon Landsborough, Hamiltons’ new publishing director. He inaugurated a programme of two sf pocketbook novels per month, which he labelled the ‘Authentic Science Fiction Series’. The series proved popular and the label stuck. Under Landsborough’s editorship as ‘L.G. Holmes’ Authentic gradually turned into a slim paperback magazine – each issue presenting a single novel usually written by one of Hamiltons’ coterie of authors under a house pseudonym. Prolific author Roy Sheldon was the equally prolific H.J. Campbell; Jon J. Deegan was Robert G. Sharp; Lee Stanton was almost certainly Rick Conroy. Much later I was astonished to read that Clem Macartney was W.D. Flackes (1921-93), a journalist whose reports from Ireland I remembered watching on television. As well as his contribution to Authentic he seems to have published two more paperback sf novels with Hamiltons during 1951-52 – and then no more.
Campbell’s editorial page was soon renamed “H.J. Campbell Writes” and given a header showing an avuncular figure, bearded and duffle-coated, sitting at his desk and writing with a quill pen – all in the guise, as it seemed to me, of an old-fashioned sea captain or lighthouse keeper. Campbell remained editor until No. 65 (January 1956), when he left in order to go into full-time scientific research. His successor was E.C. Tubb (1919-2010). Ted Tubb was already well known to readers of Authentic as a prolific contributor – probably even more so than some realised, as issues frequently featured two or three of his stories under various pseudonyms. This would not change!
Tubb immediately began to re-emphasise the magazine’s fiction content, reducing the number of scientific articles before getting rid of them altogether. Covers had started to carry the strapline THE MAGAZINE OF TOMORROW, and this was left in place until Authentic was changed to a larger format and completely redesigned with a new logo from No. 78 (March 1957). Covers had been dominated by the attractive artwork of J.E. Mortimer and E.L. Blandford, but now they were, with two exceptions, to be the work of Josh Kirby. Full of action and incident, they reflected the magazine’s new strapline ACTION – SCIENCE – ROMANCE – ADVENTURE printed in a yellow strip across the top of the cover (for some reason ROMANCE was dropped from the next issue onwards).
There were to be only eight issues of the new Authentic. When No. 85 (October 1957) appeared, there was no hint that it would be the last. Mike Ashley stated that Hamiltons took the decision to fold Authentic and concentrate on the more profitable Panther Books. It was ironic that Authentic had started as a paperback, and had become a magazine almost by accident. Authentic in personality as well as name, it not only entertained but held out for a future that would never be – except for those who fell under its spell and learned to dream.
(John Howard)
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