Death of a fan dancer

Pulp fiction cover early 1940

Pulp Fiction

Australian authors have often felt under siege. In the 1930s Australian writers struggled to make headway against the cheap American literature being dumped on the Australian market. World War II effectively killed this trade because American publications were deemed non-essential imports. But instead of encouraging a flowering of Australian literature, many Australian publishers simply filled this lucrative void with their own versions of pulp fiction and comics.

Death of a fan dancer, by John Carlshon, was published by Frank Johnson in the early 1940s. Johnson, who had cut his teeth on high-brow literary publishing in the 1920s, was by the late 1930s an industrious publisher of both Australian and overseas subjects as diverse as poetry, first aid, ballet, comics and, of course, popular literature.

This cover design, by house artist Rhys Williams, is very much to a formula. The lurid colours, salacious tone and bold design all said to the potential reader: crime ‘pulp fiction’. Johnson knew that there was a ready market of readers for this material: print runs started at 10,000.
Display item Death of a fan dancer

 

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