Henry "Harry" Steeger co-founded Popular Publications in 1930, one of the major publishers of pulp magazines, with Harold S. Goldsmith. Steeger handled editorial matters while Goldsmith took care of the business side. Both were veterans of the pulp magazine business. Steeger had edited war pulps at Dell Publishing while Goldsmith had served as an editor at A. A. Wyn's Magazine Publishers.
Steeger's new firm launched four titles which debuted on the newsstands with cover dates of October 1930. Battle Aces was the only title to survive and more titles were produced with the ensuing months.
With Horror Stories and Terror Tales, Steeger started the "Shudder Pulp" genre. Albeit short lived, this genre was responsible for some of the most striking cover art of the pulp era. The over-the-top stories of torture and tittilation however, led the public look down on the fiction found in pulp magazines.
Steeger also edited (anonymously) the last issues of Black Mask.