Introduction

The British Reprint Edition of Astounding, published by the Atlas Publishing and Distribution Company of London, is possibly the most important and certainly the longest lived of all British reprint editions. It ran for 222 issues from 1939 to 1963, which is the longest continuous run of any British magazine. Only New Worlds equalled this number of issues, and only with long breaks in publication and including issues which were not in magazine format at all. Even through the Second World War, ASF kept going with never fewer than five issues a year when all other British SF magazines had expired for lack of paper. For a long stretch in the 50s and 60s, it succeeded in publishing nearly all of the fiction content of the US original and much of the editorial and non-fiction content as well. It assumed a monthly schedule in February 1952 and its only departure from that was during the UK printing strike in 1959, until its last issue in August 1963.

The story of Astounding in Britain starts even before 1939, when Atlas was importing the US magazine and distributing it in the UK with a 1/- price sticker attached to the front cover. The earliest such issue I have definitely identified is from June 1934, though I have heard of a 1932 issue. It is possible, therefore, that ASF was circulating in Britain almost from its earliest days. The British edition proper starts with the August 1939 issue, which at first sight looks identical to the US original, even down to the 20 cent cover price. This appearance is deceptive, however. Only the front cover looks the same; the back and inside covers carry UK advertising and the content is cut down from the original. Closer examination of the front cover shows fine differences in detail, suggesting that it was repainted for the UK edition.

In fact, it seems likely that all of the British covers were redone by Atlas house artists. No-one has succeeded in identifying them, so they are attributed here as "After Rogers", "After Freas", and so on. Dave Wood is attempting to catalogue all of the US covers alongside the British reprints so that you can see the differences. You can see his web site, still under construction, here. While in other reprint editions the copies are often rather crude, many of these covers are of quite good quality and hard to distinguish from the original. One cover looks at first sight to be completely original - that of December 1962 - as the illustration is not seen on the cover of any US Astounding, nor is any artist credit given. Dave Wood has identified it for me, however: it is in fact repainted from John Schoenherr's black and white title page illustration for Chris Anvil's The Toughest Opponent, in the US October 1962 issue. It was never seen in the British edition in its original black and white form. A few others are loose adaptations rather than straight copies from US covers.

Repainting would have been necessary as, for much of its life, the British edition was a different size from the US original. It started as approximately pulp size and remained so, with slight variations, until late 1953 when it assumed digest format, again with variations over the years. The US magazine was in pulp format in 1939, assumed a large format in 1942, reverted to pulp and then became digest size in 1943, but an interpretation of digest format that almost never exactly corresponded with the UK edition. In March 1963, it assumed a slick, large format, while the UK edition remained digest to the end of its life. Until it assumed digest format, the British edition had many fewer pages than the US magazine and only contained a selection of the content, usually omitting the serial, internal illustrations and most of the non-fiction content. After 1953, it was comparable in size to the original and was often able to carry all of the fiction, most of the non-fiction and even some of the illustrations.

Back Covers - more interesting than they look

There is no artwork on the back covers of these magazines (nor is there on the US original). The British magazines almost all carry the same unremarkable advertisement from International Correspondence Schools, in several variations over the years, like the one on the right. What could possibly be interesting about that? This advert has proved invaluable to researchers into obscure British reprint magazines, however. The secret is in the detail below, where ICS proudly claims "55 years of service". This advert was changed every year and it seems to date ICS from late 1890 or early 1891. So what? All of the Astoundings were dated anyway, so how does that add anything to the sum of human knowledge?

It is exactly because the Astoundings were all dated and carried this advertisement over many years that it is so useful.The point is that many British reprint editions were not dated, nor even numbered. But they often carried this same advertisement, complete with ICS's proud boast of longevity, on the back cover! So it has been possible to date them at least to within a year. By careful examination of other internal adverts - looking at the return addresses on reply coupons, for example, or of named individuals - it has sometimes been possible to date or sequence them more accurately than that. An obscure and scholarly past-time, but a valuable one for those interested in the history of these little-known magazines. Look, for example, at the British editions of Weird Tales to see what has been discovered by this method.

Cross Reference

There was until recently no comprehensive index to the British reprint edition of Astounding and Analog. IBSFM indexed it only from 1939 to 1953, but did not cover the last ten years of its life - more than half the issues and probably two thirds of the stories. Now. however, Phil Stephensen-Payne has completed an index of the whole run, but it has not yet been published so I have given rather more information in the cross-reference table below than I have for other magazines.

In general, one BRE corresponded in its cover and most of its content to one US original. This was not always the case, though, and I have identified the exceptions in the table. I have shown the US issue that provides the cover, the issue that provided the lead story and/or main content if that was different, and issues from which other fiction content was drawn, if any. I have also shown the size, the page count and the cover price. Note that the sizes are subject to a few millimetres' variation as the trimming was not entirely consistent.

A word of explanation is required of the numbering system. Until April 1943, the UK issue carried the volume and serial number of the US original from which it derived. From June 1943 to December 1944, there was no numbering at all. From February 1945, the UK edition adopted a numbering system of its own at v4#9, as if it had been numbered in volumes of twelve from the beginning, and it continued this scheme until the last issue, v19#8.

Acknowledgements