The Shadow originated as a radio show in 1930. In 1931 Walter B. Gibson, the creator of The Shadow, started writing books under the name Maxwell Grant. Out of the 325 original stories, he wrote 282 of them, two stories a month in The Shadow Magazine. These reprintings are meant to look as close to the originals as possible with typographical errors fixed. Some of the individual volumes may have sticker residue on the front cover.