THE PULP CALENDAR: October 4

How about a little voodoo? This 1930 Detective Story cover promises us a "Severed Head" but gives us a severed leg on that poor little doll. It has something to do, perhaps, with George Allan England's hero T. Ashley, who'd been around since 1918 but would really get down to business over the next few years. England may have been top-billed this issue but some people probably bought it to continue Edgar Wallace's serial The Clew of the Silver Key, complete with archaic spelling. In 1933 Street & Smith would take over Clues Detective Stories from Clayton but stuck with the modern spelling. Most of this week's authors are the usual Street & Smith veterans, though Leslie T. White makes his Detective Story debut at the precocious age of 27, after breaking into pulp at the start of the year.