Hugo Gernsback recently received the following letter from L. B.
Silvester, the founder of "Scoops," the first English all-stf magazine
that we've been hearing so much about.
"In October of last year, I got at the board of Messrs. C. Arthur
Pearson, Ltd., of London, one of our big publishing houses. With
your magazine as an example, I strove to convince the powers that
be. They finally made a compromise--they would turn out an ambiguous
sort of cheap weekly which could assume definite adult or juvenile
characteristics upon receipt of those indications which a few months of
circulation would give.
"A putrid sort of thing suffering under the name of SCOOPS was what
resulted. Together, Mr. F. Hadyn Dimock and myself tried to do what
was right and what the board wanted at the same time. I wrote a story
and some short articles every week; he did the editing. Finally we got
the board's consent for this form, but it was too late. The frivolous
name condemned it and the fact that in fifteen weeks it had picked up
a reputation for blood-and-thunder which it could never have lived
down. We asked for more money to re-launch it in the form we had first
visualized, but we were refused! The paper had failed. Britain's first
and only scientifiction paper had failed within four months of its
inception, and this in face of the fact that nowadays science has an
interest, to some extent, for everyone, and is to be found on the
screen and stage, and in the daily press."
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