Just before the turn of the century inexpensive fiction magazines printed of pulpwood paper emerged, known as "Pulps." Frank Munsey wrote the first pulp magazine, "Argosy," an adventure fiction anthology, in 1896. Pulp magazines contained short novels or novels in serial form. Novels containing detectives or masked avengers and stories that emphasized adventure, war, sports or life in wild west were popular among males. "Tarzan," by Edgar Rice Burroughs, exemplifies the best of the pulp writers.
Pulp magazines faded in popularity with the coming of comic books in the late 1930's. The pulp magazine style, however, became a major contribution to popular literature of the 1920's and 30's. Two pulp magazines made a significant contribution to literature. The 1919 magazine, "Black Mask," developed the hard-boiled detective style. In the late 1930's, another magazine titled, the "Astounding," helped to create modern science fiction. Generated by a murky environment and vulgar dialogue, the hard-boiled style possessed an uncomfortable air of realism. In the era of Prohibition, a time of revolts and lack of faith in government, the hard-boiled detective style became a genre that produced many investigative adventure stories. The most notable features of the hard-boiled detective style became evident in the pulp novels of the 1920's. The hard-boiled detective merged into a world of corruption and crime. The hard-boiled detective story style is seen in the works of several pulp writers such as Dashiell Hammett ("The Maltese Falcon"), Raymond Chandler and Mickey Spillane.