The short story that would become the ubiquitous Christmas movie "It's a Wonderful Life" (1946) made its first magazine appearance in the December 1944 issue of Reader's Scope, a short-lived title that positioned itself as a liberal alternative to the conservative Reader's Digest. Good Housekeeping published the same story in its issue dated January 1945, but presumably out in time for Christmas of '44. The author was Philip Van Doren Stern.
According to Theodore Peterson's "Magazines in the Twentieth Century," Reader's Scope's editor, Leverett Gleason, also attempted to differentiate his magazine from Reader's Digest by favoring timely articles over those of "lasting interest," as was the Digest's motto.
Gleason had a longer and more successful career as a publisher of comic books, whose characters included the Silver Streak and the Daredevil.
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