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Thirty years of science fiction stories! Galaxy Science Fiction, published from 1950 to 1980, was the creation of editor H. L. Gold. Entering the soon burgeoning ring of post war science fiction magazines, Galaxy's editor was interested in sociology, psychology and other "soft" sciences, and was also willing to publish humorous and satirical stories. The magazine was immediately successful, garnering a Hugo Award for best magazine in 1953, the first year the awards were issued.

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Horace Gold, Galaxy's first editor, had worked at Standard Magazines in the early 1940s as an assistant editor, reading for Standard's three science fiction pulps: Startling Stories, Thrilling Wonder, and Captain Future. With the advent of the war, Gold left publishing and went into the army, but in 1949 he was approached by Vera Cerutti, who had at one time worked for Gold. Cerutti was now working for an Italian publisher, Edizione Mondiale, who had opened an office in New York as World Editions.^[5] World Editions had made a heavy loss on Fascination, an earlier attempt to launch a new magazine in the US, and they were now looking for recommendations for new titles.^[2]^[6] Gold knew about The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, a new digest launched in the fall of 1949 but felt that there was still room in the market for another serious science fiction magazine. He also proposed paying three cents a word, an impressively high rate, given that most of the competition were only paying one cent a word. World Editions agreed, hired Gold as the editor, and the first issue appeared in October 1950.^[5]

For the first issue, Gold obtained several stories by well-known authors, including Isaac Asimov, Fritz Leiber and Theodore Sturgeon, as well as part one of Time Quarry by Clifford D. Simak. Along with an essay by Gold, Galaxy's premiere issue introduced a book review column by anthologist Groff Conklin (which ran until 1955) and a Willy Ley science column. Gold's editorial staff included Washington Irving van der Poel as art director. Gold made efforts to improve the quality of the printing techniques, though the paper quality was not high enough for the full benefits to be seen.^[6]

MORE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_Science_Fiction