Startling Stories
1–48 of 191, free to read, from the world's archives.
Where these come from, and who sees what
Every page is shown from the archive that keeps it: the Internet Archive, Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and, where this server is set up for them, Europeana and Trove. Nothing is copied to this site. Each work's page names its archive, links to the work there, and states its licence or status as the archive does.
Comics and magazines carry no age ratings, and Golden Age comics and the pulps are full of horror, crime, violence and racist caricature, so each work is placed cautiously from what its archive says about it. Erotica is left out altogether.
| Little Ones | Funny-animal comics and nursery magazines. |
|---|---|
| Kids | Comics and magazines made for children, such as St. Nicholas and Child Life, unless they deal with ghosts, monsters, spies or fights. |
| Tweens | Humour and teen comics, science, computing, sport and hobby magazines, true stories and education. |
| Teens | Everything else, including the pulps and anything we cannot tell about; horror, crime, war, westerns, superheroes and romance go no lower; every newspaper, since historic papers carry graphic reports and racist content. |
| Adult | Works with racist caricature (named, or a series known for it, such as The Spirit's Ebony White), wartime comics of 1941–1946 and jungle comics, which commonly carried it, each with a note saying so; the true-crime magazines and the "weird menace" pulps; sexual themes and gore. |