Those of us born after, say, 1950, probably aren’t terribly familiar with pulp magazines. But most anybody reading one today might get a jolt of déjà vu nonetheless. From the 1920s through the ’40s, ...

The hard-boiled private detective was born on the pages of pulp magazines, amid beautiful dames, waiting to be saved. Although the genre has acquired a trashy reputation, the language used to tie ...