Saucy Stories pulp January 1938 Spicy Pinup Photo Cover Stockings Feet Legs For Sale

Saucy Stories February 1938 Rare Photo Cover Pulp
In his autobiography My Life as Author and Editor, Mencken describes how the launch of Parisienne ignited an already tense rivalry: "Unhappily, it also aroused the baser passions of old Colonel Mann's bastard son, Clayton, whose nefarious imitation of the Smart Set, Snappy Stories by name, now had a new and apparently formidable competitor [in Parisienne]. Clayton, a scoundrel if there ever was one, sought revenge by a characteristic device. That is, he had one of his agents complain to the New York Society for the Prevention of Vice that the Parisienne was obscene. This was either late in August or early in September, 1915." This resulted in the arrest of Eltinge F. Warner. According to Mencken, Warner's lawyer facilitated a $500 bribe to a judge, which ended the matter.
Mencken also claims that Warner's anger over this matter drove him to plot revenge against Clayton, as he developed schemes to induce the Society for the Prevention of Vice to go after Clayton's Snappy Stories as well. For his part, Mencken's idea of retaliation was to escalate the competition by launching another entrant in this space in 1916, Saucy Stories: "Nathan and I were naturally against Warner's plan to have him raided, for we feared that if it were executed it might only bring down the Comstocks upon the Smart Set. But it was plain that something would have to be done to teach him a lesson, and during the spring of 1916 we hit upon a plan. It was to bring out a new pulp magazine that should do to Snappy Stories what Snappy Stories was doing to the Smart Set."
Absent more evidence, it is unclear whether Mencken's suspicion that Clayton was behind the original raid over Parisienne was what actually happened. Or for that matter, if Eltinge Warner actually set his eye-for-an-eye scheme of revenge against Clayton in motion. Nevertheless, in March 1916, Clayton, along with two staffers, were arrested and charged with publishing and offering for sale obscene literature in Snappy Stories. Around the same time, a Street & Smith editor or staffer named George C. Dodge was also arraigned on a charge of publishing indecent literature in Live Stories. Both of those cases were eventually dismissed.Undaunted, Clayton quickly acquired Live Stories from Street & Smith. In 1916-1917, both Clayton and Warner would double down on this market segment by offering rebound titles of previous material. Warner Publications issued rebinds of Saucy Stories and Parisienne titled Clever Stories and Fascinating Fiction, respectively, while Clayton's New Fiction Publishing Co. rebinds included Spice Box, Pepper Pot, and Ginger Jar. Of course, other publishers had entered the fray by this time, and C.H. Young Publishing Company published rebound copies of Young's Magazine that year (under the Yellow Book name), which is arguably the title that started this market in 1897. Meanwhile, Snappy Stories continued to cause controversy.
Other rivals had also quickly emerged. As early as 1913, 10 Story Book (then newly acquired by publisher Arthur J. Gontier) began to react to the market evolution triggered by the emergence of Snappy Stories with a shift towards more suggestive covers and by 1914 included the cover tagline No Essays, No Serials, Nothing Heavy, Just 10 Snappy Stories. Of course, the spicy pulp market would ramp up substantially over the 1920s and 1930s, with titles ranging from Pep Stories to Spicy Mystery and a legion of others.