Bestsellers: Popular Fiction since 1900

Citation

Powell, S. (2003), "Bestsellers: Popular Fiction since 1900", Library Review, Vol. 52 No. 2, pp. 90-90. https://doi.org/10.1108/00242530310462189

“An archaeology of best‐selling fiction is ironically, for an age supposedly dominated by the visual image, an archaeology of a deeply literate age”, writes Clive Bloom in the first chapter of this reference text. Bestsellers attempts to document not only which books in the category of “popular fiction” have been the most successful during the last century, but why those books and their writers appealed to the reading public’s taste. A complex task, considering that, in the first half of the century, very few records were kept that detailed what was being read and by whom. The variations in classification, or genre, production, and availability of books in the past also adds to the issue of what in fact goes into forming a “bestseller”.

Bloom examines not only the history of the book, but also that of the reader. Works that are included as “bestsellers” must have been written by an author of the twentieth century (revisited “classics” of an earlier era are not included). The range of possible titles and authors is then reduced by limiting the field to “adult” fiction (or, in the case of J.K. Rowling, works which appealed to a wider audience than originally intended). Poetry is also left out. Bestseller status can be achieved through a single work (although Harper Lee, author of To Kill A Mockingbird, is one of the authors missing from this compilation), or consistent sale of a large number of copies, as with Agatha Christie and Stephen King. The selected writers and their works are then arranged chronologically, with the author at the height of their fame slotting into a “historical period”, such as “The interwar years” of 1919 to the early 1930s (featuring, as examples, Christie, Wodehouse, and J.B. Priestley).

What made these bestsellers a success? Bloom investigates the cultural and material history of popular fiction as a background to his final selection. Paperback books – the “novelettes” of the 1920s, which appealed to female readers, and the “disposable paperbacks” of the 1970s – boosted the sales of so‐called “pulp” fiction, for instance. Culturally, popular fiction was initially associated with the working class, as the level of literacy began to increase and books became more accessible (lending libraries, both commercial and public, stocking the most popular titles of the day). Production and profit began rising to the top of the bestseller list, instead of the actual written word or the talent of the writer. Romantic fiction and the detective story have always been among the most popular genres, and the success of the Mills and Boon series illustrates this connection between sales of a book, or of an author’s name, and its overall popularity.

Bestsellers is a comprehensive attempt to present a study of the most popular writers of the twentieth century, and perhaps begin to explain why their writing should have so appealed at any one moment in history that it earned the author bestseller status. Entries on authors include date of birth (and death, where applicable), titles of main works, a brief biography, and a description of that author’s style and content. Bloom presents the academic reader with the data to support his “bestseller” choices. As well as chapters on the “Origins, problems and philosophy” of the bestseller, “How the British read”, and genre, there are also several historical and “current” surveys, on literacy, trends in popular fiction, and publishing. There are three main indexes, arranged by author, title, and subject – perhaps for the general reader who wishes to locate their favourite author, or “rate” their choice in reading material!