Unknown (magazine)
Unknown (magazine).Unknown was an American pulp fantasy fiction magazine, published from 1939 to 1943 and edited by John W. Campbell. Unknown was a companion to Astounding Science Fiction, also edited by Campbell; many authors and illustrators contributed to both. Campbell wanted to publish a fantasy magazine with more finesse and humor than Weird Tales, the leading fantasy magazine in the 1930s. Campbell required his authors to avoid simplistic horror fiction and insisted that the fantasy elements be developed logically. Notable stories included several well-received novels by L. Ron Hubbard and Fritz Leiber's "Two Sought Adventure", the first in his Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series. Unknown was forced to a bimonthly schedule in 1941 by poor sales, and cancelled in 1943 when wartime paper shortages forced Campbell to choose between turning Astounding into a bimonthly or ending Unknown. The magazine is generally regarded as the finest fantasy fiction magazine ever published, despite the fact that it was not commercially successful.