Joseph T. "Cap" Shaw: "Black Mask" Editor Supreme!

"Debuting in 1920 as a general fiction pulp, THE BLACK MASK became the home for hardboiled detective fiction. Although George Sutton and, later, Phil Cody were the editors when Carroll John Daly and Dashiell Hammett introduced readers to such tough-guy detectives as “Three-Gun” Terry Mack, Race Williams, and The Continental Op, it wasn’t until “Cap” Shaw took over the reins in late 1926 that the hardboiled style began taking off.

"We meditated on the possibility of creating a new type of detective story differing from that accredited to the Chaldeans and employed more recently by Gaborieau, Poe, Conan Doyle — in fact, universally by detective story writers; that is, the deductive type, the cross-word puzzle sort, lacking — deliberately — all other human emotional values."

Employing the prose of “Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Raoul Whitfield, George Harmon Coxe, Roger Torrey, Forrest Rosaire, Paul Cain, Lester Dent, among others,” Joe Shaw forged the "Black Mask" school of writing, “differing from anything else American, and unlike anything English.”

Born May 8, 1874, in Gorham, Maine, Joseph T. “Cap” Shaw turns 150 years old in 2024. Start making your plans now.

We hope you’ll join PulpFest 2024 at DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry from August 1 – 4 in Mars, Pennsylvania for “Spice, Spies, and Shaw.”