Welcome to our online mystery and detective fiction magazine archive. The majority of our magazines are vintage, but you’ll find some from the late 20th century as well. Don’t miss the collection of free audio stories near the bottom of the page.
See ‘Magazines‘ in the top menu to find our other categories.
Table of contents
Mystery and Detective Magazines
5 Detective Novels
1949-1953
Indiana: Standard Magazines
Five very short novels, a couple of short stories, and features.
Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine Website
Anthology 1978-1982
Mystery Magazine 1960-2009
NY: Davis Publications
Two mystery magazines of short stories.
Armchair Detective
1953-1997
NY: Armchair Detective Inc.
It was “primarily a mystery fanzine featuring articles, commentary, checklists, bibliographical material, etc., started by the legendary crime fan and bibliographer Allen J. Hubin.” It was published from 1967 to 1997.
Black Mask
1920-1952
Indiana: Fictioneers
A pulp magazine first published in April 1920 by the journalist H. L. Mencken and the drama critic George Jean Nathan. It is most well-known today for launching the hardboiled crime subgenre of mystery fiction, publishing now-classic works by Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Erle Stanley Gardner, Cornell Woolrich, Paul Cain, Carroll John Daly, and others.
Crime Magazines Online
Magazine Collection 1870-1971
Various publishers
A wide variety of mystery & crime fiction magazines, published from the late 19th century through the 1960s. Some titles: Edgar Wallace Mystery Magazine, London Mystery Selection, Crime Illustrated, Scientific Detective Monthly, Sexton Blake Library, All in Pictures.
Crime and Detective Pulp Magazines PDF
1905-1958
U.S. – Various publishers
This popular collection contains over 500 issues. The majority are from the 1930s through the early 1950s, but there are also issues from the 19th century up through 2013. Some titles: Famous Detective Stories, The Phantom Detective, Spicy Detective Stories, The Armchair Detective, Popular Detective, Dime Detective Magazine, Black Mask Detective, Thrilling Detective, 5 Detective Novels, True Detective Mysteries Magazine, New Detective, Dime Detective Magazine PDF, Hollywood Detective, Strange Detective Mysteries, Ten Detective Aces, Private Detective Stories, Startling Detective Adventures, 10-Story Detective, Front Page Detective, Dorcas Dene Detective, Bulldog Drummond, Crack Detective and Mystery, Clues, New Nick Carter Weekly, and more titles.
Detective Story
1916-1949
NY: Street & Smith
An American magazine published by Street & Smith from October 15, 1915, to summer 1949 (1,057 issues). It was one of the first pulp magazines devoted to detective fiction and consisted of short stories and serials. While the publication was the publishing house’s first detective-fiction pulp magazine in a format resembling a modern paperback (a “thick book” in dime novel parlance), Street & Smith had only recently ceased publication of the dime novel series Nick Carter Weekly, which concerned the adventures of a young detective.
Ellery Queen
Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Website
Mystery Magazine 1944-2009
Anthology 1961-1988
NY: Davis
Launched in 1941 by Mercury Press, the magazine is named after a fictitious author and detective. The founder’s goal was to make a “quality publication devoted exclusively to the printing of the best detective-crime short-story literature,”. In addition to steady popularity among readers, the magazine has won numerous awards over the years, and continues in publication today. Thanks to Wikipedia.
G-Men
1936-1946
NY: Better Publications Inc.
Stories of the Federals in Action. “G-men” was the term for FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) agents. Magazines contained a short novel, short stories, and nonfiction articles.
Manhunt
1953-1967
NY: Flying Eagle
“World’s Most Popular Crime-Fiction Magazine” is on the cover. Novelette and short stories.
Mike Shayne’s Mystery Magazine
1958-1985
NY: Renown Publications
Each issue included a novella featuring character Mike Shayne, and a dozen or more other mystery short stories. Mike Shayne was a fictional private detective created during the late 1930s by writer Brett Halliday, a pseudonym of Davis Dresser. The character appeared in 12 films, a radio show, and a 32-episode television series on NBC in 1960-61.
Mystery Magazine
1917-1929
NY: Frank Tousey
200 issues of this early magazine of mystery short stories.
Nick Carter
1897-1914
NY: Street & Smith
About half of these issues are in French. Nick Carter first appeared in the story paper New York Weekly (Vol. 41 No. 46, September 18, 1886) in a 13-week serial, “The Old Detective’s Pupil; or, The Mysterious Crime of Madison Square”; the character was conceived by Ormond G. Smith, the son of one of the founders of Street & Smith, and realized by John R. Coryell. Coryell retired from writing Nick Carter novels and the series was taken over by Frederick Van Rensselaer Dey, who wrote 1,076 novels and stories from 1890 until his suicide in 1922.
Popular Detective
1935-1953
NY: Better Publications
Every issue had several short stories and a number of feature articles.
The Saint Mystery Magazine
1953-1984
NY: Fiction Publishing Co.
The Saint is the nickname of the fictional character Simon Templar, featured in a series of novels and short stories by Leslie Charteris published between 1928 and 1963. After that date other authors collaborated with Charteris on books until 1983; two additional works produced without Charteris’s participation were published in 1997. The character has also been portrayed in the franchise The Saint, which includes motion pictures, radio dramas, comic strips, comic books, and three television series. Roger Moore played the character in one of the TV series, and went on to star in a number of James Bond movies. Leslie Charteris was the supervising editor of this magazine.
Secret Service
ca 1899-1910
NY: Frank Tousey
“A 32-page weekly magazine of detective stories featuring Old and Young King Brady, a world-renowned team of United States Secret Service agents. The pair run the Brady Detective Bureau in New York City and, with the help of Alice, their able office assistant, they track down criminals across the globe. Wall Street swindles and opium rings based in Chinatown are principal plot devices. The series was published from 1899 through 1925.” – Stanford Libraries.
Thrilling Detective
1932-1953
NY: Thrilling Publications
Published from 1931 to 1953, Thrilling Detective was one of many pulp fiction magazines from publisher Ned Pines.
True Detective
1925-1983
NJ: MacFadden Publications
True Detective (originally True Detective Mysteries) was an American true crime magazine published from 1924 to 1995. It initiated the true crime magazine genre, and during its peak from the 1940s to the early 1960s it sold millions of copies and spawned numerous imitators.
Websites of Mystery Fiction Magazines
Free online versions of these fiction magazines are not available, but their websites feature articles of interest.
Mystery Audio Stories – Audio Detective Novels
These links to audiobook searches of mystery subjects lead to public domain recordings from the LibriVox.org collection at Internet Archive. The audiobooks, recorded by Librivox volunteers, were nearly all published before 1930. Recordings include mystery short stories, crime novels, and famous fictional detectives.
All Librivox audiobooks are in the public domain. They can be freely streamed online or downloaded for offline listening. See our page on Librivox Audiobooks for useful information and tips.
Explore More Free Online Resources
See our Century Past directories for hundreds of webpages of Books; Magazines; Articles, maps, & photos; and Newspapers. You’ll find the same directories on the top Menu. Here are a few suggested pages: