Popular Reading and Publishing in Britain, 1914-1950Before the advent of television, reading was among the most popular of leisure activities. Light fiction--romances, thrillers, westerns--was the sustenance of millions in wartime and in peace. This lively and scholarly study examines the size and complexion of the reading public and the development of an increasingly commercialized publishing industry through the first half of the twentieth century. Joseph McAleer uses a variety of sources, from the Mass-Observation Archive to previously confidential publishers' records, to explore the nature of popular fiction and its readers. He analyzes the editorial policies which created the success of Mills & Boon, publishers of romantic fiction, and D. C. Thomson, the genius behind The Hotspur and other magazines for boys, and also charts the rise and fall of the Religious Tract Society, creator of the legendary Boy's Own Paper, as a popular publisher. |
Contents
Popular Reading and Publishing 18701914 | 12 |
The Commercialization | 42 |
Adult Reading Habits | 71 |
Copyright | |
7 other sections not shown
Common terms and phrases
adult Adventure advertising Alan Boon Amalgamated Press Annual authors Barbara Cartland best-selling Big 5 papers Biggles Bookseller Boon novels Boon's Boy's Own Paper Britain Cartland cent cinema Circular circulation classes copies D. C. Thomson Dundee editors example figures film firm George Girl's Own Paper heroine Hotspur John Boon Journal leisure activities librarian light fiction literary Literature London lower-middle M-O Reading Mass-Observation million Mills & Boon Minutes of Committee moral newsagent newspapers Orwell Penguin penny dreadfuls People's Friend popular fiction public libraries publishing industry readership reading habits reading public Red Letter Religious Tract Society romantic fiction Rover Second World Sept serial Similarly Social stories success Sunday Survey tastes thrillers titles trade tuppenny libraries Twopenny USCL Victorian W. E. Johns W. H. Smith wartime weekly magazines Wizard Woman's Magazine women women's papers writers young