I added the Bible Students Monthly issues that Atlantis once had provided to my Watchtower Archive page. Now, I wondered when exactly these issues have been published - they all mention only a "volume" and "number", but never a year.
The Publisher book mentions that "late in December 1917 and early in 1918, they distributed 10,000,000 copies of the issue of The Bible Students Monthly that featured the subject 'The Fall of Babylon'" - which was volume 9 number 9. In another chapter, the book mentions "The Bible Students Monthly (Volume VI, No. 1, published early in 1914)." From these statements, it seems evident that volume I had been published in 1909.
But the March 1, 1955 Watchtower makes a contradicting statement on page 141:
From 1909 onward a monthly tract—first called “Peoples Pulpit,” then “Everybody’s Paper,” and still later, “The Bible Students Monthly”—was widely distributed
This sentence seems to indicate that the tract was FIRST called "Peoples Pulpit", LATER "Everybody's Paper", and EVEN LATER "The Bible Students Monthly". It seems to be wrong, since I have 5 volumes of "Everybody's Paper" alone - and I found issues of "The Bible Students Monthly" urging people to ask for a copy for "Peoples Pulpit". Looks like these tracts were published simultaneously, not one after the other.
Finally, Our Kingdom Ministry 10/1976 makes another contradicting statement:
It reminded me of the first service I had the privilege of doing in 1906 when we put out The Bible Students Monthly from door to door.
This obviously can't be true if the first issue was published in 1909.
So, what's your opinion? First issue published in 1909, and the statements in Watchtower and Kingdom Ministry are simply wrong?
And another question: I found two Canadian issues of The Bible Students Monthly labelled "volume 20". These would be from 1928 then. Is this true, or have they simply skipped volumes 11 to 19?