Joseph Shaw (editor)

{{Infobox person

| birth_name = Joseph Thompson Shaw

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1874|5|8}}

| birth_place = Gorham, Maine, U.S.

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1952|8|2|1874|5|8}}

| death_place = New York City, U.S.

| nationality = American

| education = Bowdoin College

| occupation = {{flatlist|

Editor
author
literary agent

}}

| known_for = Editor of Black Mask magazine, 1926–36

}}

Joseph T. "Cap" Shaw (May 8, 1874 – August 2, 1952) was the editor of Black Mask magazine from 1926 to 1936.

Life and career

Before becoming the editor of Black Mask, Shaw had worked as a newspaper reporter and as a soldier in World War I, attaining the rank of captain (Shaw's friends gave him the nickname "Cap").Danger is My Business: an illustrated history of the Fabulous Pulp Magazines by Lee Server. Chronicle Books, 1993, {{ISBN|0-8118-0355-4}} (pp. 68-70). Shaw was also a professional fencer, and even won an Olympic medal for fencing.Hired Pens : Professional Writers in America's Golden Age of print by Ronald Weber. Ohio University Press, 1997 {{ISBN|0-8214-1204-3}} (p. 98) Under his editorship, Black Mask published many works of crime fiction now recognised as classics of the genre, by authors such as Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Erle Stanley Gardner.[http://www.blackmaskmagazine.com/photo_8.html Black Mask magazine] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081228004911/http://www.blackmaskmagazine.com/photo_8.html |date=2008-12-28 }}"Pulps" by Robert Sampson, in Encyclopedia Mysteriosa, edited by William L. DeAndrea. Macmillan, 1994, {{ISBN|0-02-861678-2}} (p.287-9) Chandler greatly admired Shaw's ability to encourage Black Mask writers, claiming in a letter, "We wrote better for him than we could have written for anybody else."

Despite the critical and commercial success of Black Mask, Shaw was eventually fired from the magazine, succeeded by Fanny Ellsworth. Shaw then worked as a literary agent, though without notable success.Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler, Frank MacShane, ed., Columbia University Press, 1981, {{ISBN|0-231-05080-1}} (pp. 5-8).

Shaw was a writer himself, producing short stories, novels, and articles.