Paperback Books

What kind of book do you like to read, a paperback or a hardcover?  You can find them both at stores and libraries.  

Private Home Health Care loves to read books.  On vacation we find it easier to bring a paperback but at other times a hard cover feels right.

How did those easy to carry versions come to be?

You may read conventional wisdom listing the first mass market paperback book sold as The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck.  Maybe so but there is another line of thinking . . .

James Fenimore Cooper wrote paperback-like stories in 1823.  Then in the 1840s tabloid “story papers” arrived. 

Steam rotary presses allowed for cheap printing.  The new railroad network distributed them.  

New “Dime Novels” came to life in the 1860s. A book by Mrs. Ann Stephens, Maleaska, had 40,000 titles printed from 280 different series.   That seems like a mass-market too.

Jump to the 20th century, 1935, and the beginning of what is today the respected Penguin Random House publishing company.

The history of Penguin Publishers has a long story but here it is in a nutshell.

Allen Lane was head of a London publisher.  Sales had been declining since the Great Depression so he was looking for new ideas.  

He pondered producing good quality fiction and nonfiction that was affordable so on July 30th he launched book sales for 4 cents a book.

Mr. Lane made sure the books had good quality ink and paper.  What made them affordable to print in large print runs. Books were then sold at Woolworth’s and at train kiosk stations.

The paperback industry began under Penguin Publishing Company.

Interesting fact.  Frederick Warne of Beatrix Potter fame owned Viking Press.  In 1975, Viking Press merged with Penguin to become part of that publishing family.

Photo by Tuur Tisseghem