From 1943 through 1965, Jack Finney (1911 - 1995) published 62 stories in 70 issues of magazines that included Cosmopolitan (3), Collier's (29), Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (1), Ladies' Home Journal (2), Good Housekeeping (14), The Saturday Evening Post (10), McCall's (8), and Playboy (3). (Three of his stories were published as serials spanning more than one issue, and one, A Dash of Spring, only appeared in The Third Level, an anthology of Finney's stories through 1957.)

Many of these stories, especially those classified as time-travel science fiction, were collected in anthologies: The Third Level (1957), I Love Galesburg in the Springtime (1962), About Time: Twelve Stories (1986) and Three by Finney (1987). This latter book is in fact a novelization of Finney's 1960 story, The Other Wife, and includes two book-length stories, Marion's Wall and The Night People, first published in 1973 and 1977, respectively. Perhaps an equal number of stories, whose themes are more romantic, even comedic, have not been anthologized and are only available in the original magazines in which they were published.

Some of these magazines are now well over a half century old and in poor condition at the various libraries housing them. To study and preserve Finney's work, I collected original copies of all 70 magazines, mostly during 2003. This book represents my catalogue of the definitive Jack Finney Magazine Collection.

All covers were scanned at 300 dpi into Photoshop 7 with an HP OfficeJet G55xi scanner. For some magazines, such as Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine or Good Housekeeping that measure no more than about 8.5 x 11 inches, this was done in a single scan. For larger magazines like Collier's and Ladies" Home Journal that are at least 10.5 × 13.5 inches, it required two scans. Partial scans were then "stitched" together digitally. (Two issues - The Saturday Evening Post for September 19, 1959 and October 13, 1962 - Were especially problematic because the covers fold out to twice the normal size, requiring four scans. Only the folded versions are shown here.)

While obvious defects such as tears were processed with Photoshop 7 or Fireworks CS3, no attempt was made to return these covers to their original, pristine condition. They are, after all, old, and should look their age. in some cases, such as the June 1958 issue of Good Housekeeping, the registration is off, giving a blurred appearance. No attempts were made to correct these defects. It's the way things were a half century ago.

Mailing labels were removed when it was possible to do so without damaging the underlying cover. Otherwise, they were left in place and we can wonder, for example, who was Ray van Cleef at 805 E Philadelphia St, York, PA? Did he read Finney's first foray into science fiction, "The Third Level", in the October 7, 1950 issue of Collier's that bears his address? What did he think of it?

To give each issue the same visual importance, cover images were reduced in size by as much as 85% to produce images of the same height. In reality, sizes ranged two-fold, from the small Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (5.4 × 7.5 inches) to Ladies' Home Journal (10.8 × 13.6 inches).

In short, it looks easier than it was.

Printed Coffee Book in 2008

It may be surprising that Jack Finney, author of The Body Snatchers (1954) and Time and Again (1970), and recipient of the 1987 World Fantasy Award for lifetime achievement, did not publish his stories in the likes of Astounding Science-Fiction (Analog), Fantasy and Science Fiction, or Galaxy, Instead, they are to be found in family and "women's" magazines such as Collier's and The Saturday Evening Post, Good Housekeeping, and McCall's. His sixteenth publication, and first fantasy/science fiction story, The Third Level, was published in the October 7, 1950 issue of Collier's. Among the innocent-eyed children saluting the flag on the cover of the July 1953 Good Housekeeping is a teaser promising Finney's Five Against the House will be the "terrific suspense story of the year." The July 1956 issue of Cosmopolitan promises House of Numbers - a story, not unlike the currently popular TV series Prision Break, of a man trying to free his brother from San Quentin - is "a complete novel by Jack Finney, so gripping and fascinating you can't put it down." The Saturday Evening Post, known for its Norman Rockwell covers, was the home of another Finney prison story, Seven Days to Live (January 10, 1959), as well as the six part serial beginning in the August 22, 1959 issue, The U-19's Last Kill, that would be turned into the 1966 film, Assault on a Queen, starring Frank Sinatra, with screenplay by Twilight Zone host, Rod Serling. McCall's, which styed itself the "First Magazine for Women," published the spacetime-distortion stories I Love Galesburg in the Springtime (April 1960), and Where the Cluetts Are, the latter in the January 1962 issue featuring Elizabeth Taylor on the cover.

It’s astounding to think, for example, that in March 1955 women who read Good Housekeeping, with its wide-eyed little girl and puppy on the cover, may also have read Finney's story, Of Missing Persons. If they did, they'd discover the author talking about what we now called a womhole; a portion of spacetime that folds back onto itselt, creating a passage from one "here-now" to another.

Finney's very special travel agent explains how normal travel differs from travel through a wormhole. He imagines two couples - the Robinsons and the Bradens (Finney's middle name) - living on the fourteenth floor of adjacent apartment buildings, but sharing a common living room wall. For the Robinsons to visit the Bradens, they must walk out the door, down fourteen floors, around the block, up another fourteen floors and then "ring a bell, and are finally admitted into their friends' living room - only two feet from their own." The travel agent continues:

...the way the Robinsons travel is like space travel, the actual physical crossing of those distances. ... But it you could only step through those two feet of wall ... well, that is how we 'travel.' 

It's hard to imagine such a story in today's Good Housekeeping. What happened? Did IQs, to quote Ripley in Aliens, "drop sharply" in the last fifty years? Have we become stupider?

What happened, at least in part, was television and paperbacks. For thirty-five cents, the per issue price of Cosmopolitan or Good Housekeeping, readers could buy a paperback like Finney's 1957 anthology, The Third Level. Television was free and increasingly ubiquitous. Magazines like Collier's and The Saturday Evening Post that had been in publication since 1888 and 1821, respectively, saw their circulations decline. Collier's went from weekly to bi-weekly in August 1953, then ceased publication in December 16, 1956, the same year as the film Invasion of the Body Snatchers was released. The Saturday Evening Post lasted longer, until February 8, 1969. it was "revived" in 1971. Its successor, specializing in health and medical breakthroughs, is published six times a year. With the demise of these publications, good authors were drawn to other magazines such as Playboy.

You can see this trend in this book. Finney's last story in Collier's was Contents of the Dead Man's Pocket October 26, 1956). Thereafter, he moved his stories to The Saturday Evening Post, and in 1962, to Playboy. His last magazine publication was Double Take in the April 1965 issue of Playboy. Thereafter, he concentrated on novels, most notably, Time and Again (1970) and its poorly-received sequel, From Time to Time, published in the year of his death, 1995.

Other magazines, such as Good Housekeeping and Ladies' Home Journal, morphed to match their changing audiences. Cosmopolitan underwent a complete transformation in 1965 when Helen Gurley Brown became its editor. McCall's survived until 2001 when it was renamed Rosie, a vehicle for actress, commentator and Donald Trump nemesis, Rosie O'Donnell. It ceased publishing a year later.

I can imagine Jack Finney looking at today's versions of these magazines. He might say something like what Becky Driscoll told Dr. Miles Bennell in The Body Snatchers (Collier's, November 26, 1954):

"I mean she thinks he's" - one shoulder lifted in a puzzled shrug - "an impostor, or something. She says he looks like Uncle Ira, talks like him, acts like him - everything. She says she knows it's not Ira. I'm worried sick!"

He might add, "Maybe IQs did drop sharply while I was away."