The First Fantasy Magazine

The first science fiction magazine was Amazing Stories, launched by Hugo Gernsback in 1926. But the first fantasy magazine was published even earlier, in January 1919, not in the United States, but in Germany. It was called Der Orchideengarten: Phantastische Blätter (The orchid garden: fantastic pages). 

The ever entertaining and informative Pulp Librarian has published a history of the magazine in this Twitter thread. 

"The orchid garden is full of beautiful - now terribly gruesome, now satirically pleasing - graphic jewelery" announced the advanced publicity. It was certainly a huge departure from the Art Nouveau of Jugend magazine, which German readers were already familiar with.

It's an interesting story and one I didn't know anything about, despite reading SF and fantasy for most of my life, and having read widely about the history of the field.

If you want to view more of the magazine, the  archives of the University of Heidelberg have full scans of Der Orchideengarten.