New
Worlds has the longest, most distinguished and complex history of any British
magazine, extending from the 1930s almost to the present day. Though its appearances
in recent years have been isolated and sporadic, one can never be quite sure
that it will not, like "Weird Tales", rise again from the dead in
some new incarnation.
The history of NW has been dominated
by two key figures in British SF:
E J ( John or Ted) Carnell, founder and editor
from its beginnings until 1964; and
Michael Moorcock, who took over as editor
from number 142 and, though not always designated as editor, has had a strong
influence ever since.
Under Carnell’s regime, NW established
itself as the leading, mainstream, professional British science fiction magazine.
Under Moorcock, it became progressively more experimental and moved far away
from the conventional themes of SF, struggling and at times failing to remain
commercially viable as it did so.
If you want a fuller account of
the editorial and publication history of NW, you should refer to CN95 or SFFWF.
The key points are:
A fanzine called "Novae Terrae" (Latin
for "New Worlds") appeared in 29 issues from 1936 to 1939. In 1939,
Carnell took over the editorship and published four further issues, starting
again at vol 1 no 1 and now under the English version of the title. The fanzine
issues are not covered in Visco but an example of Novae Terrae is shown
above for interest – it is v3#1, August 1938.
After the war, Carnell restarted NW as a professional
magazine, at first in pulp format with a publsher called Pendulum Publications.
Three issues appeared at irregular intervals until that publisher failed.
Number 1 appeared in two cover variations, the second version appearing also
as the cover of number 2.
With support from other fans, Carnell started
Nova Publications to continue New Worlds (in digest size or variations thereof)
which then ran until from #4 to #141 in 1964, when Nova succumbed to falling
sales and the waning poularity of the digest format. Perhaps because of the
increasing financial difficulties in Nova, the magazine carried no cover artwork
from #120 onwards.
From no 142, Roberts and Vinter took over NW
(and its companion magazine, Science Fantasy) and both now appeared in paperback
format. NW continued in this form until #172; 171 and 172 were published by
Gold Star Publications, though the format is apparently identical to the preceding
issues.
From 1967 to 1971, #173 to 201, NW adopted
a large-size, slick magazine format with some variations and continued in
publication with grant assistance from the Arts Council of Great Britain,
suffering in later issues from the refusal of national distributors and retailers
to carry the magazine, leading finally to its demise.
NW then folded in magazine format but was continued
from 1971 to 1976 as a series of Sphere paperbacks. The first few were titled
"New Worlds – the Science Fiction Quarterly" so that it appeared
that NW was continuing as a regular periodical. In his editorial in the first
of these, Moorcock described this as a "return to our pre-1967 format".
It never achieved a quarterly schedule, but 10 volumes were published between
1971 and 1976. They were numbered on the covers as nos 1 to 10. Though it
is nowhere to be seen in the books themselves, many authorities list these
as NW #202 to 211.
The magazine reappeared briefly in 1978-79
in five issues as a fanzine; its production was low budget and circulation
very limited and it had moved a very long way indeed from its origins as a
SF magazine. These were numbered 212 to 216. #212 took the form of a spoof
newspaper and was apparently distributed free.
NW now disappeared for a period of tweve years,
before re-entering the mainstream and showing up as four trade paperbacks
published by Gollancz in 1991-4. These were again headlined New Worlds 1 to
4 but, on the publication data page, they are described as Volume 62, #217
– 220.
New Worlds surfaced twice again in the late
90s. In 1996, a 50th anniversary edition was published in magazine format,
numbered 221. Then in 1997, White Wolf published a New Worlds anthology, like
the Gollancz issues a trade paperback edited by David Garnett with Moorcock
as consulting editor, this one described as vol 64, #222.
If there have been any more appearances
since, or if any more are planned, I cannot say. It is to say the least stretching
a point to consider these later incarnations a continuation of the original
magazine, but the clear line of descent is there so I have included them all.
Numbering
Throughout the Nova Publications
era, NW was numbered continuously but also in volumes of three – hence, v1#1,
v1#2, v1#3, v2#4 and so on, up to v47#141. The sequence numbers have continued
until the present day (though, as explained above, they have from time to time
dropped from sight) but the volume numbering changed in the Roberts and Vinter
era, then was dropped from #178 onwards. Then it reappeared with the Gollancz
paperbacks, which together formed Volume 62. Don’t ask me how, after an interval
of more than 13 years, they leapt from volume 51, #177 to volume 62, #217. In
any case, the sequence numbers are sufficient to identify NW and I have not
used the volume numbers here.
Image sources
Many thanks to Alistair Durie
for the following issues: 1-3, 20, 34, 39, 56, 62, 68, 69, 72, 126, 221
To Alistair Durie and Cuyler
Brooks for 174-201
To Cuyler Brooks for 203, 214-216
To Phil Stephensen-Payne for nos 208, 210,
211, 218
To Yutaka Morita and Dave Wood who have provided a number of images to replace
poor quality originals.
The rest of the covers were scanned from copies in my own collection.
If you have better images of any copy, don’t hesitate to send them. An image
is still needed of no 212.
New
Worlds has the longest, most distinguished and complex history of any British
magazine, extending from the 1930s almost to the present day. Though its appearances
in recent years have been isolated and sporadic, one can never be quite sure
that it will not, like "Weird Tales", rise again from the dead in
some new incarnation.