Introduction

The Western & Frontier Fiction Magazine Index (or Western Fiction Index in short) is an attempt to provide an index to western fiction magazines in the same style as the classic Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Weird Fiction Magazine Index compiled by Stephen T. Miller and William G. Contento, and the recent Crime, Mystery, & Detective Fiction Magazine Index compiled by Phil Stephensen-Payne, Stephen T. Miller and William G. Contento. Unlike previous genres, very few issues have been formally indexed previously, with the notable exception of:

• An Index to Wild West Weekly by Larry Estep, which also included indexes to Pete Rice Magazine/Western Adventures and Romance/Romantic Range.

Larry has kindly given permission for the inclusion of his data in the current data, as well as the contents of several hundred other issues that he collected a decade or so ago when planning a similar project.

This index is currently a work in progress and will not be completed until some time in 2014 (probably). Even then it is much more fragmentary than other indexes in the FictionMags Index Family and the compilers would welcome any offers of assistance from anyone who has access to some of these magazines and is prepared to help out.

In particular:

1. The core of the index has been compiled from secondary sources such as eBay, rather than from the magazines themselves, and as such inevitably reproduce some of the mistakes inherent in such listings (as well as undoubtedly introducing some new ones). We would love to hear from anyone who has a collection (whether large or small) of western fiction magazines and would be prepared to compare the relevant sections of the index against their collections.

2. There are still a number of significant gaps in a number of magazines (see here for a full list), but we would particularly love to hear from anyone who has any copies of a handful of magazines for which there are significant gaps:
   • Complete Western Book Magazine
   • Dime Western Magazine
   • Double Action Western
   • Famous Western
   • .44 Western Magazine
   • Lariat Story Magazine
   • New Western Magazine
   • Wild West Stories and Complete Novel Magazine

3. Although the index contains many issues of magazines published outside the US, the coverage of these is still woefully incomplete and we would love to hear from anybody who has western fiction magazines published in the UK (particularly reprint editions of US pulps), Australia, Canada, South Africa or New Zealand (or, indeed, any other country publishing western fiction magazines in the English language).

A list of all the magazines that are being included in the index can be found here while a detailed list of the magazines and issues for which contents information is still needed can be found here.

If you think you can help with any of the above, or would just like more detail on the project, then please – all contributions are welcome, no matter how small!

Acknowledgements

Thanks, in particular, must go to my collaborators on the project:

• Larry Estep who shared his data with us;
• Richard Fidczuk who spent many an hour in the Library of Congress and has contributed the contents of over 1500 issues to the index;
• Bill Contento, who converted much of the data originally submitted to the FictionMags Index, and wrote the (extremely clever) programs that made this all possible.

However, the index would not have been possible without the many contributors mentioned above, and I would like to thank all of those who have already contributed (directly or indirectly) to the project:

Tiziano Agnelli	John Eggeling	Morbus Iff	James Reasoner
Richard Aldrich	Doug Ellis	Jonathan G. Jensen	Len Robbins
Mike Ashley	Peter Enfantino	Kent Johnson	Frank M. Robinson
Rene Beaulieu	Joseph Erhardt	Bruce Kiefer	Peter Rogner
Kimberly Becker	Larry Estep	John Larson	Karl Juergen Roth
Paul Berglund	Shane Farmer	Steve Lewis	James Rouse
Richard Bleiler	James Felton	Dennis Lien	Bob Sankner
David Blyth	Richard Fidczuk	John Locke	David Saunders
Dave Brzeski	Dave Fox	Glenn Lord	Richard Saunders
Daniel Buck	Gary Garner	Patrice Louinet	Frank Shortt
Rusty Burke	Douglas Greene	Ray Luce	Scott Slone
Keith Chapman	Hal Hall	Todd Mason	David Lee Smith
Mike Chomko	Rick Hall	Steve Miller	Ray Steptoe
Michael Colpitts	Geoff Harrison	Richard Moore	Joel Thoreson
Tom Daniels	Monte Herridge	Kelly Mordaunt	Al Tonik
Paul Di Filippo	Steve Holland	Jess Nevins	Virgil Utter
Alistair Durie	Larry Hopper	Juri Nummelin	Morgan Wallace
Stefan Dziemianowicz	Richard Horton	Jeff Pennington	Mike Ward
Scott Edwards	Theo Hristakos	Rob Preston	Martin Wooster
Paul Herman and colleagues at the Robert E. Howard Foundation
Paulette Schmidt and the researchers at AustLit