The Shadow Magazine was launched in 1931. It soon established a monthly schedule and then, in 1932, doubled that to a twice-monthly schedule, which it maintained for over 10 years, before dropping back to a monthly schedule in 1943. This marked the beginning of the end with the schedule dropping to bimonthly in 1947 and then to quarterly in 1948, before the magazine finally expired in Summer 1949.
In all, it is composed by 325 issues, each containing a lead novel featuring Kent Allard, "The Shadow", as well as a small number of short stories and other features. Most of the novels were written by Walter B. Gibson (under the byline Maxwell Grant) although a small number were written by Lester Dent, Bruce Elliott and Theodore Tinsley (all under the Grant byline). There were also three reprint volumes entitled The Shadow Annual in the 1940s.
There was also a parallel Canadian reprint edition, although full details of this are unclear. From 1931 to circa 1936, it seems to have reprinted the US issues from 5-6 months previously. Following the War Exchange Conservation Act of 1940 which banned the direct import of US pulps, a new series started, with redrawn cover art. This ran on a monthly basis from the middle of 1941 to late 1944.
A British reprint edition ran for about a dozen isues under the name Street & Smith's Shadow Mystery Magazine. It then changed its name to Street & Smith's Mystery Detective reprinting stories from a variety of US magazines, running to a total of 40 issues for the two series together.
- List of The Shadow Magazine issues