Leo Margulies
(June 22, 1900 – December 26, 1975)
Leo Margulies was known as the “Little Giant” of the pulps. At one time in the 1930s, he reputedly edited 46 magazines, including the SF magazines Startling Stories, Thrilling Wonder Stories, and Captain Future. He edited Thrilling Wonder Stories from its first issue in 1936 (after the title change from Wonder Stories). As editor, he was the final authority on the Science Fiction League and dealt with such Earth-shattering events as the GNYSFL feud.
In the 1940s, he and H. L. Herbert formed King-Size Publications and issued Fantastic Universe Science Fiction and other magazines. Later, Margulies formed a new company to publish Satellite Science Fiction. In 1957, he bought the rights to Weird Tales. He and his wife, Cylvia Margulies, subsequently published Weird Tales during 1973–75.
He helped launch the Popular Library line of paperback books. He was co-editor (with Oscar J. Friend) of the anthologies My Best Science Fiction Story and From Off This World in 1949, and went on to compile several several other SF, fantasy, and weird anthologies. At the time of his death, he was editor of Mike Shayne's Mystery Magazine.
He was born in Brooklyn but was raised in Norwalk, Connecticut. After briefly attending Columbia University, he began working for Munsey's Magazine, selling subsidiary rights to its stories. During World War II, Margulies worked as a war correspondent.
He later spent five years as head of East Coast research for Fox Films, a predecessor company of 20th Century Fox, and afterward became editorial chief of publisher Ned Pines' Standard Magazines.
In December, 1975, he was attending a meeting in London of the Mystery Writers of America when he suffered a stroke. He died in Los Angeles, California.
His nephew, Philip Sherman, wrote a biography, Leo Margulies: Giant of the Pulps, published in 2017. Information is included on the Standard SF magazines, Margulies' SF anthologies, and the birth of the SF magazines Fantastic Universe and Satellite Science Fiction. Information is also provided on the many comic books published by Ned Pines when Margulies worked with him.
| Person | 1900—1975 |
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