Daisy Bacon | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Bacon, from a 1942 publication | |
| Born | Daisy Sarah Bacon May 23, 1898 |
| Died | March 1, 1986 (aged 87) |
| Occupation(s) | Magazine editor, writer |
| Known for | Editor, Love Story Magazine (1928–1947) |
Daisy Sarah Bacon (May 23, 1898 – March 1, 1986) was an American pulp fiction magazine editor and writer who was best known as the editor of Love Story Magazine from 1928 to 1947. She moved to New York in 1917, working at several jobs before being hired in 1926 by Street & Smith, a major pulp magazine publisher, to assist with "Friends in Need", an advice column in Love Story Magazine. Two years later, she was promoted to editor of the magazine, retaining that role for nearly twenty years. Love Story was one of the most successful pulp magazines, and Bacon was frequently interviewed about her role and her opinions of modern romance. Some interviews commented on the contrast between her personal life as a single woman, and the romance in the stories she edited; she did not reveal in these interviews that she had a long affair with a married man, Henry Miller, whose wife was the writer Alice Duer Miller.
Street & Smith gave Bacon other magazines to edit: Ainslee's in the mid-1930s and Pocket Love in the late 1930s; neither lasted until 1940. In 1940, she took over as editor of Romantic Range, which featured love stories set in the American West, and the following year she was also given the editorship of Detective Story. Romantic Range and Love Story ceased publication in 1947, but in 1948, she became the editor of both The Shadow and Doc Savage, two of Street & Smith's hero pulps. However, Street & Smith shut down all their pulps the following April, and she was let go.
In 1954, she published a book, Love Story Writer, about writing romance stories. She wrote a romance novel of her own in the 1930s but could not get it published, and in the 1950s, also worked on a novel set in the publishing industry. She struggled with depression and alcoholism for much of her life and attempted suicide at least once. After she died, a scholarship fund was established in her name.