The Shadow

The Shadow was an American pulp magazine that was published by Street & Smith from 1931 to 1949. Each issue contained a novel about the Shadow, a mysterious crime-fighting figure who had been invented to narrate the introductions to radio broadcasts of stories from Street & Smith's Detective Story Magazine. A line from the introduction, "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows", prompted listeners to ask at newsstands for the "Shadow magazine", which convinced the publisher that a magazine based around a single character could be successful. Walter Gibson persuaded the magazine's editor, Frank Blackwell, to let him write the first novel, The Living Shadow, which appeared in the first issue, dated April 1931. Sales were strong, and Street & Smith quickly moved it from quarterly to monthly publication, and then to twice-monthly.

From the Wikipedia article “The Shadow (magazine)”, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

The Shadow ceased publication in 1949. Back issues are often held by research libraries and digital archives.