First Fandom Experience is a collaborative publishing project. Over the last several years, our team has issued six volumes focused on the early history of fandom. There’s more to come as we round out our primary series, The Visual History of Science Fiction Fandom. Additional offerings are also in the works.

Fan history is replete with stories of individuals whose experience in fandom enabled them to create the foundations of the massive science fiction and fantasy industry we know today. The writings of these early fans also offer unique insights on the US and Britain during the Great Depression and the Second World War.

We hope to engage with students, historians and others with interest and intent to learn, understand and publish these stories.

In support of our work, FFE has assembled an extensive archive of fan material — fanzines, convention material, club ephemera, photographs, correspondence and others — all from the late 1920s to the late-1940s. The physical archive resides in the collections of David Ritter and Alistair Durie, each accumulated over decades. Our exclusive focus on this period also allows us to source supplemental digital material from other private, university and public sources.

The digital archive holds about 4,100 distinct fanzine issues dated 1930 – 1946, with near-complete coverage over 810 titles for this period. Complete runs of seminal early fanzines include:

Ad Astra (1939 – 1940)	The Nucleus (1938 – 1944)
The Alchemist (1940 – 1947)	The Phantagraph and predecessors (1934 – 1946)
Arcturus (1935 – 1937)	The Planet (1930)
The Beyond (British; 1942 – 1946)	The Planeteer (1935 – 1936)
The Brooklyn Reporter (1935)	PSFS News (1937 – 1948)
The Comet / Cosmology (1930 – 1933; lacking one issue)	Ramblings / Matters of Opinion (1938 – 1947)
Cosmic Cuts (British; 1943 – 1946)	The Reader and Collector (1938 – 1946)
Cosmic Tales (1937 – 1941)	Sardonxy (1940 – 1945)
Fantascience Digest (1937 – 1941)	The Satellite (British; 1938 – 1940)
Fantaseer (1939 – 1941)	Scenes of Fantasy (1939)
The Fantasite (1940 – 1944)	Science Fiction (Siegel & Shuster; 1932 – 1933)
Fantasy Digest (1939 – 1940)	Science Fiction Collector (1936 – 1941)
The Fantasy Fan (1933 – 1935)	Science Fiction Digest / Fantasy Magazine (1932 – 1937)
Fantasy Fiction Telegram (1936 – 1938)	The Science Fiction Fan (II) (1936 – 1941)
The Fourteen Leaflet (1935 – 1937)	The Science Fiction Scout (1937 – 1939)
Futuria Fantasia (1939 – 1940)	SOLOR (1937-1939)
The Futurian (1938 – 1940)	Spaceways (1938 – 1942)
Futurian War Digest (British; 1940 – 1945)	Sun Spots (1940 – 1947)
Helios (1937 – 1938)	Sustaining Program (1938 – 1947)
Imagination! (1937 – 1938)	Sweetness and Light (1939 – 1940)
International Observer (1934 – 1937)	Tesseract (1936 – 1938)
Le Vombiteur (1938 – 1941)	Temper! (1945 – 1947)
Le Zombie (1938 – 1975)	The Time Traveller (1932 – 1933)
Milty’s Mag (1940 – 1946)	Tomorrow (British; 1937 – 1938)
Mind of Man (1936 – 1937)	Ultra (Australian; 1939 – 1942)
New Fandom (1938 – 1941)	Van Houten Says (1938 – 1942)
Novae Terrae (1936 – 1939)	Voice of the Imagi-Nation (1939 – 1947)

Also of note are one-of-a-kind fan artifacts, including hand-illustrated fanzines such as Tellus News and Supramundane Stories; preliminary dummy versions of fanzines; signed copies of convention program books; and Frederik Pohl’s Vombitoria.

A partial index of the material currently in the FFE archive is available for download, below. We’ll update this periodically. Future editions will include listings of correspondence, photographs and original fan art.

FFE is prepared to facilitate access to the archive for individuals and organizations seeking to research and publish in this area of study. Please reach out to us at:

info@firstfandomexperience.org

We look forward to hearing from you!