Redbook Dramas
May 26, 1932 – November 3, 1932 · 19 broadcasts
Redbook Dramas -- also billed Redbook Magazine Radio Dramas -- was a 1932 syndicated anthology that turned short stories from Redbook Magazine into fifteen-minute radio plays. The magazine's editor, Edwin Balmer, chose the stories and hosted the series; on the first dozen programs he came on after the announcer to introduce each tale and its author. The stories ranged across romance, mystery, adventure, and light comedy, several tinged with the mood of the Depression into which the series launched. The adapted authors are the show's real roll of names -- among them MacKinlay Kantor, Peter B. Kyne, Nina Wilcox Putnam, Vincent Sheean, Arthur Somers Roche, and the future radio-serial pioneer Elaine Sterne Carrington. Balmer himself is better remembered today as co-author of the science-fiction classic When Worlds Collide. Roughly twenty-six transcriptions were made; nineteen survive as OTRR-certified recordings -- a durable audio sampler of early-1930s popular magazine fiction, framed each week by its editor's own voice.
Episode Spine
1932
Redbook Dramas -- also billed Redbook Magazine Radio Dramas -- was a 1932 syndicated anthology that turned short stories from Redbook Magazine into fifteen-minute radio plays. The magazine's editor, Edwin Balmer, chose the stories and hosted the series; on the first dozen programs he came on after the announcer to introduce each tale and its author. The stories ranged across romance, mystery, adventure, and light comedy, several tinged with the mood of the Depression into which the series launched. The adapted authors are the show's real roll of names -- among them MacKinlay Kantor, Peter B. Kyne, Nina Wilcox Putnam, Vincent Sheean, Arthur Somers Roche, and the future radio-serial pioneer Elaine Sterne Carrington. Balmer himself is better remembered today as co-author of the science-fiction classic When Worlds Collide. Roughly twenty-six transcriptions were made; nineteen survive as OTRR-certified recordings -- a durable audio sampler of early-1930s popular magazine fiction, framed each week by its editor's own voice.