Introduction

The history of the British reprint editions of Galaxy, like that of its companion magazine "If", is very complex and comprises four separate series by my reckoning. The version you will read here is slightly different from the accounts given by the other two sources that describe these editions, Tuck and CN95. However, I do have (and am surrounded by, as I write) complete or nearly complete runs of all four series so I hope I am not significantly off-beam. In comparing the contents of the British with the US edition, I have used the index in SFFWF for the US magazine and my own copies for the British.

There were the following editions:

• first series, 94 issues 1953 - 1962
• second series, 5 issues in 1967
• third series, 11 issues 1969 - 1970
• fourth series, 26-27 issues 1972 - 1975

The latter three closely parallel the reprint editions of "If", which became a companion magazine to Galaxy when it was acquired in 1959.

First Series

This series was published by Strato Publications and distributed by Thorpe and Porter, both of Leicester, England. None of the early issues carried dates, so I have taken my dating for these from Tuck. According to him, it ran largely monthly (with occasional gaps) from #1, January 1953, to #72, March 1959; then bimonthly from #73, May 1959, to #92, July/August 1962; then 93 and 94 were September and October 1962. The full correspondence between the UK issues and the original US magazine is given in the table below. The British issues were numbered v3#1 to v3#12 - for no reason that I can understand, as they were taken from US v4#6 - v7#1 - then the volume number was dropped and the rest were numbered 13 to 94.

Even within the first series, the history is quite complicated and the relationship between the reprint and the original changed considerably over its ten-year life. In summary:

• the first six were essentially complete reprints of the US original with the same page count, the only changes being to the covers, the publication information and the advertising. They were printed in the Netherlands (which they continued to be until #51)
• v3#7 had a smaller page count than the US magazine, but appears to have all of the original content. I'm not sure how it did this, but it does have a notably smaller type face than #6 and may well have omitted some illustrations and advertising
• from #8 to #71, the contents of the British edition was a shortened version of the US original, omitting normally one or two short stories and occasionally the editorial and/or book review sections, and on one occasion the Willy Ley fact article. In a few cases, the reduced contents still did not quite match the available page count and a short filler was added from elsewhere. One was a short story from "Fantastic Adventures", others were short fact articles whose origins I cannot trace; they may possibly have been British. While nearly every issue drew its whole contents from a single issue of the original edition, there are a couple of instances where a story has been taken from a different number, presumably to make the page count come out right.
• in every case, the cover was from the US Magazine and I don't believe any were repainted as the layout left the artwork largely uncluttered by text. In any case, the contents in most cases matched the cover so no changes would have been necessary. The exceptions were the Christmas issues. In the US, these generally carried festive covers with a Santa Claus theme. Since these would not have reached the UK before January at the earliest, they were dropped and replaced by covers from earlier in the run. However, the contents from the Christmas issue was retained as, otherwise, episodes of serials would have been missing or out of order. These issues are all detailed in the table below, but the numbers in question are 14, 26, 36, 48 and 60.
• from #52, Strato switched to an English printer. At the same time, they must have changed the binding method also. The Dutch printed issues open very easily and smoothly while the English ones are notably stiffer, though neither is particularly durable.
• with #72, both the US and the British editions switched to a 196 page format (actually, 192 pages plus the covers). This meant that the BRE could now carry all of the US content; and, in fact, more. #72 to #78 contained all of the stories from the US original plus one extra from the stock of stories not used in earlier numbers, while #79 substituted a longer story for one of the originals. This has been done by omitting some advertising and illustrations to make space for the extra story. The covers of #76 and #77 were switched around, #76 carrying the cover from December 1959 and #77 the one from October, so that the "Santa Claus" cover arrived in Britain in time for Christmas. However, the contents were published in the correct order, it was only the artwork that was switched. This was possible because all of the text describing what was in the magazine was in a separate panel on the left hand side of the cover.
• with #80, the history as a separate and distinct edition is effectively over. From #80 to #94, the inner magazine was identical to the US edition and was printed in the US. Even the back and inside covers were identical and carried US advertising. The only visible difference was the UK price and issue number on the front cover and spine.

My definition of a separate edition requires that some part of the magazine at least is distinctly different at the printing stage, so the last fifteen just about qualify. After this, Thorpe and Porter continued to import the US magazine into Britain but simply overstamped the cover with a UK price. Tuck includes these as a continuation of the British edition which he assigns notional numbers up to 125, up to and including the five issues of GXY2 below. But these numbers never appeared on the magazine itself, so I think this is cheating.

He also says that the stamp included a number which identified the month of UK publication: 5 for May, 7 for July and so on. I do have a series which is so stamped, but I am afraid that I cannot make any sense of the numbers. If Tuck's interpretation is correct, they suggest a highly irregular publication schedule ranging from three to eleven months behind the US.

Second Series

There were just five of this series, published or at least distributed by Gold Star Publications of London, like the parallel British editions of "If" and "Worlds of Tomorrow". Advertising inside also claimed responsibility for the native British "New Worlds" and SF Impulse" and the address corresponds with that of Roberts and Vinter, the publishers of those two magazines.

The five issues ran bimonthly from January/February to September/October 1967. They correspond to the US issues v24#5 to v25#3 originally published June 1966 to February 1967. The only evidence of the British edition in the main magazine is a small panel on the contents page and the original US advertisements have been retained. The advertising on the back and inside covers has been replaced by UK adverts, however, and the UK date and price have been substituted on the front. The spine of September/October carries what seems to be the Olympic five-ring symbol, which is a bit of a mystery as neither 1966 nor 1967 was an Olympic year (though there was a Winter Olympics in February 1968).

Third Series

This series, like the corresponding series of "If", has been neglected by other sources and I can find no reference to it anywhere. But it definitely exists. I have eleven issues, September 1969 to August 1970 omitting February 1970, corresponding to the US original dated one month earlier (there was no US Galaxy for January 1970). They are the issues v28#6 to v30#4, though the first four of both the original and the reprint were incorrectly numbered v128#6 to v129#3 until someone spotted the misprint and corrected it with v29#4.

Though I say above that there were eleven issues, I have an old note that suggests that there were two more at the end of the series, September 1970 and October/November 1970, v30#5 and 6. Unfortunately, I can no longer remember why I thought that and can find no other reference to them anywhere, so I am inclined now to think that it was a simple cataloguing error. If anyone has other information, please let me know.

This series was published by the Universal-Tandem Publishing Company of London, a UK subsidiary of the US publisher Universal Publishing and Distributing Corporation. They look to be complete reprints having all the contents of the US original, though there is UK advertising on the back and inside covers and some in the main text also. The exception is UK October 1969 (US September), which has a most unusual wrap-around cover by Menzel. On all, the title page has been amended with the UK publication data and the later date. The cover is changed only to show the UK price and date and most have a black star with the words "New" or "All New". There is no indication where these magazines were printed.

Fourth Series

CN95 says that there were 25 in this series, published 1972 to 1975 by Universal-Tandem like the third series above. But there are definitely 26, or 27 if you count twice the one issue that appeared in two different covers. It is not surprising that there is confusion about how many there were as the numbering scheme was bizarre in the extreme. The UK issues were numbered 1-10, then 11 appeared three times (one of which was the cover variant I mentioned above), then 12 appeared three times, then 14, then 17-26. I have tried to clarify which US magazine belonged to which US original in the table below. It is further complicated by the oddities of the US numbering scheme, where at least two issues got the wrong number owing to a misprint, one of the numbers was then used twice, then there was a gap left in an attempt to put matters right.

I have several of the US editions corresponding to the UK reprints and, so far as I can tell, they are completely identical, right down to the panel which says "Published in the United Kingdom by..."; it evidently was more economical to print only one version for both markets. Both the cover and the body of the magazine were printed in the US. The only difference, therefore, is in the UK price and number on front cover and spine. That makes it marginal whether one should consider this a separate edition at all or just a cover variant, but the entertainment value in figuring out which issue was which have assured its place here.

UK to US cross-reference

This table cross-references the issues of the various British editions to the US issues from which they are drawn. Unless otherwise noted, the cover and the main contents come from the same issue. The few instances where the US cover and the contents do not correspond are highlighted, though not the cases where the odd story is drawn from other than the main source.

The first series carried no date until #80, when it began to show the date of the US original though, no doubt, it actually appeared in the UK a month or so later. Up to that point, the dates I have shown are those given by Tuck. The second and third series were dated and the cover dates are given below. The fourth series showed the US dates inside, although again it probably did not appear in the UK until a little later than in the US.

Source of Images

Most of the images were scanned from copies in my own collection, with the exception of GXY4 #21, which was provided by Phil Stephensen-Payne.