Sweden's First Magazine with Fantastic Tales
I get the impression that those who have covered Swedish sf/fantasy history in
their books (eg Sam J Lundwall, John-Henri Holmberg, Jerry Määttä) never dig
deep enough. Time and again I find interesting information about early
publications and other things, dealing with the fantastic genre. You don't even
have to dig in obscure archives to find the information - it's been readily
available in books about the history of publishing, journalism and media.
I have only in a sense done archive digging once, and that was when I found
the 1682 magazine Relationes Curiosae, Swedish popular science publication
telling stories about fantastic phenomena in a fictionalised manner. The
magazine was actually found in the archives of the Royal Library in Stockholm,
but I first read about it in a book about the history of the press (I'm very
interested in media history and read all kinds of books on that subject). More
about Relationes Curiosae:
//www.freelists.org/post/skriva/Presshistorien-och-protofantastiken ;(in
Swedish - try Google Translate)
One may also find information about a society founded in 1945, Atomic Noah
(Atom-Noak in Swedish), in several books about Harry Martinson, the author of
the space epic Aniara, but no genre historian seems to have noticed it - until
I did:
//www.freelists.org/post/skriva/RymdHarry-och-AtomNoak ;(in Engoish after a
short intro in Swedish)
Those interested in Swedish genre history have spent a lot of efforts on
trying to find the 19th century magazine supplement Stella, which probably is a
hoax. But at the same time they all missed the early 20th century magazine
supplement Between Fantasy and Reality (Mellan fantasi och verklighet, in
Swedish) - which does exist. It began in 1905 and was published until at least
1916. I recently wrote about it:
//www.freelists.org/post/skriva/Between-Fantasy-and-Reality ;(in English)
And now we have another interesting find, with information plainly available
in publishing history books.
One can argue about which Sweden's first s/fantasy magazine was. Relationes
Curiosae (1682) was perhaps too much popular science, though the stories were
"fantastic" and told in a fitionalised way. Mellan fantasi och verklighet
(1905) wasn't independent but a supplement to the non-genre mother magazine
Allers. Hugin (1916) was mostly popular technology with science fact told in a
fictionalised way. Most will however agree that Jules Verne Magasinet (1940)
was a science fiction (and fantasy) magazine by all standards, even though it
*later* added The Week's Adventure to the title and diluted the contents with
westerns and crime stories.
But what if we found an earlier magazine of fairy tales? A magazine running
fiction and pointing to the fantastic genre in its title? That would precede
Jules Verne Magasinet.
There is such a magazine and we can read about it in the book Veckopressen i
Sverige ("The Weekly Press in Sweden"; publishing house Mälarögården and the
Literature Science Institution of the University of Lund,1979).
Sagomagasinet (1936-38, from "saga", ie fairy tale) was published biweekly in
1936, and after that weekly until folding, by the Sagomagasinet publishing
house (Saomagasinets förlag, in Swedish), owned by the well-known Elander
publishing group in Gothenburg. The Elanders were major players in the popular
press, with eg the magazine Tidsfördrif (1907-1964), Detektivmagasinet
(1934-1963), Äventyrsmagasinet (1940-1970), Novellmagasinet (1935-57) and the
"kiosk" paperback series Atomboken (1957-1964 which in the beginning published
science fiction, but later turned to other genres).
Of course Sagomagasinet was meant for the "younger audience" (Veckopressen i
Sverige, page 180), but that shouldn't disqualify it as a genre magazine. Via
the search engine libris.kb.se (operated by the Royal Library) we learn that
the responsible publisher was Ewald Elander and the editor John Lorén
(1902-1976; he also edited eg Detektivmagasinet) and through Google you can
find scans from Sagomagasinet.
Here's cover and back cover of No 12 (1937). The text of the back cover says
it is for "young and old children" and a scan from an inside page makes it
clear that the magazine had stories in text (with some illustrations). The main
story of that issue is "The Golden Magician":
http://www.tradera.com/item/341517/268919752/sago-magasinet-sagomagasinet-nr-12-den-gyllene-trollkarlen?
The backcover text further says that Sagomagasinet lets you "become
acquainted with both horrible magicians and wicked witches as well as funny
little elves and friendly fairies... Everything from the world of sagas for
entertainment and pleasure". Here's the cover of No 7 (1936) with the main
story "In the Land of the Elves":
http://www.tradera.com/item/341216/205418749/sagomagasinet-1936-i-alfernas-land ;
The price was 15 öre (1 Swedish crown is divided into 100 öre), which was
similar to the price of a newspaper at the time or a tramway ticket. (Jules
Verne Magasinet a few years later costed 35 öre).
The book Veckopressen i Sverige, when discussing the Elander magazine
Tidsfördrif (the title means "pastime"), mentions that in the late 1700s and
early 1800s, there were several Swedish magazines with either the title
"Tidsfördrif" or having that word in the title, hinting that those magazines
published fiction. There's a pretty good chance the Royal Library in Stockholm
has them - the national library, supposed to have everything - and one rainy
day someone should pay their deep vaults a visit and find out to what degree
those "Tidsfördrifs" published early science fiction or fantasy.
It was after all in the days of Frankenstein.
--Ahrvid
Ps. Som synes en engelsk version av infon om Sagomagasinet, för utrikiska
E-postlistor - men SKRIVA får för all del del av det också. (Det ryktas att
många SKRIVAiter är ganska slängda på engelska!)
--
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