This book charts the publishing industry and bestselling fiction from 1900, featuring a comprehensive list of all bestselling fiction titles in the UK. This third edition includes a new introduction which features additional information on current trends in reading including the rise of Black, Asian and LGBTQIA+ publishing; the continuing importance of certain genres and up to date trends in publishing, bookselling, library borrowing and literacy. There are sections on writing for children, on the importance of audiobooks and book clubs, self- published bestsellers as well as many new entries to the present day including bestselling authors such as David Walliams, Peter James, George R R Martin and far less well known authors whose books s sell in their thousands. This is the essential guide to best-selling books, authors, genres, publishing and bookselling since 1900, providing a unique insight into more than a century of entertainment, and opening a window into the reading habits and social life of the British from the death of Queen Victoria to the Coronavirus Pandemic.
Author(s): Clive Bloom
Edition: 3
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 484
City: Cham
Preface to the Second Edition
Preface to the First Edition
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements to the Third Edition
Permissions
Acknowledgements to the Second Edition
Acknowledgements to the First Edition
Contents
1 Preface to the Revised Third Edition
2 Introduction
3 Origins, Problems and Philosophy of the Bestseller
4 How the British Read
Literacy
Assessing Literacy Levels
Literacy in Practice
Reading and the Influences of Cinema, Television and Radio
The Library System
Librarians, Sales and the Female Reader
Publishers
Building on an Established Market
The Market for Hardback Books
The Paperback
Paperbacks and Pulp Fiction
Censorship
Publishing at the End of the Twentieth Century
5 Genre: History and Form
6 Literature for Children
7 Further Thoughts on Literature for Children
8 Bestselling Authors Since 1900
An Age Passes, an Age Begins: 1900 to 1918
Florence L(ouisa) Barclay
J(ames) M(atthew) Barrie
(Enoch) Arnold Bennett
Angela Brazil (pro: Brazzle)
John Buchan
Edgar Rice Burroughs
(Sir Thomas Henry) Hall Caine
Marie Corelli (Mary Mackay)
(Sir) Arthur Conan Doyle
Charles Garvice
Elinor (Sutherland) Glyn
Nat(haniel) Gould
Kenneth Grahame
Robert Hichens
William (Tufnell) Le Queux
W(illiam) J(ohn) Locke
A(lfred) E(dward) W(oodley) Mason
Edith Nesbit
E. Phillips Oppenheim
Baroness (‘Emma’ Magdalena Rosalia Maria Josefa Barbara) Orczy
Beatrix Potter
Arthur Ransome
Sax Rohmer
Effie A. Rowlands (Effie Adelaide Maria Albanesi)
(Amy) Berta Ruck
(Richard Horatio) Edgar Wallace
Dolf Wyllarde (Dorothy Margarette Selby Lowndes)
The Interwar Years: 1919 to the Early 1930s
Leslie Charteris (Leslie Charles Bowyer-Yin)
(Dame) Agatha Christie
Richmal Crompton (Lamburn)
Warwick Deeping
Ethel M. Dell
Jeffrey Farnol
Sidney Horler
Hull (Edith Maude Hull)
A(rthur) S(tuart) M(enteth) Hutchinson
A(lan) A(lexander) Milne
J(ohn) B(oynton) Priestley
W(illiam) Riley
Rafael Sabatini
Sapper (Herman Cyril McNeile)
Mary Webb
P(elham) G(renville) Wodehouse
Virginia Woolf
P(ercival) C(hristopher) Wren
Dornford Yates (Cecil William Mercer)
World War Two to Suez: The Late 1930s to 1956
Kingsley Amis
W(ilbert) V(ere) Awdry
James Hadley Chase (René Brabazon Raymond)
Peter Cheyney
John Creasey
A(rchibald) J(oseph) Cronin
Lloyd Douglas
Daphne du Maurier
C(ecil) S(cott) Forester
Stephen Francis
Erle Stanley Gardner
William Golding
Robert Graves
(Henry)Graham Greene
Georgette Heyer
James Hilton
(Ralph) Hammond Innes
W(illiam) Somerset Maugham
Margaret Mitchell
Nicholas Monsarrat (John Turney)
George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair)
Mary Renault (Mary Challans)
Nevil Shute (Norway)
Mickey Spillane (Frank Morrison Spillane)
J(ohn) R(onald) R(euel) Tolkien
Dennis Wheatley
The Paperback Years: 1957 to 1974
Richard Bach
H(erbert) E(rnest) Bates
Enid Blyton
Jacqueline Wilson
Anthony Burgess
Sheila Burnford
Eric Carle
(Sir) Arthur C(harles) Clarke
James (du Maresq) Clavell
Jackie Collins
Len (Leonard Cyril) Deighton
Dorothy (Enid) Eden
J(ohn) T(homas) Edson
Ian Fleming
Frederick Forsyth
Winston (Mawdsley) Graham
Arthur Hailey
(Charles)Roger Hargreaves
Joseph Heller
Victoria Holt (Eleanor Burford Hibbert)
Susan Howatch
W(illiam) E(arl) Johns
(Anna)Judith (Gertrud Helena) Kerr
Ken Kesey
Louis L’Amour
D(avid) H(erbert) Lawrence
Doris Lessing (Doris May Tayler)
C(live) S(taples) Lewis
Norah Lofts
Alistair MacLean
Ed McBain (Evan Hunter)
Grace Metalious
James (Albert) Michener
Michael (John) Moorcock
Andrea Newman
Mario Puzo
Harold Robbins (Francis Rane)
Bernice Rubens
Maurice Sendak
Wilbur Smith
Jacqueline Susann
Morris (Langlo) West
Joseph (Aloysius, Jr) Wambaugh
Herman Wouk
John Wyndham (John Harris)
From Riches to Austerity: 1975 to 2008
Dan Abnett
Douglas Adams
Richard (George) Adams
Monica Ali
Ted Allbeury
Martin Amis
Virginia Andrews
Jeffrey Archer
Jake Arnott
Margaret Atwood
Jean M. Auel
Desmond Bagley
David Baldacci
Iain (Menzies) Banks
Clive Barker
Maeve Binchy
Malorie Blackman
Michael Bond
Barbara Taylor Bradford
Raymond Briggs
Terry Brooks
Dan Brown
(Dame Mary) Barbara Cartland
Trudi Canavan
Caleb Carr
Tom Clancy
Harlan Coben
Martina Cole
Shirley (Ida) Conran
Catherine Cookson (née McMullen)
Jilly Cooper
Bernard Cornwell
Patricia (Daniels) Cornwell
Michael Crichton
Clive Cussler
Roald Dahl
Louis de Bernières
Colin Dexter
Julia Donaldson
Ben Elton
Nicholas Evans
Sebastian Faulks
Helen Fielding
Colin Forbes (Raymond Harold Sawkins)
Dick Francis (Richard Stanley Francis)
George MacDonald Fraser
Alexander (Fergus) Fullerton
Alex Garland
John Grisham
Arthur Golden
Sue Grafton
Philippa Gregory
Mark Haddon
Laurell K. Hamilton
Robert Harris
Thomas Harris
Sarah Harrison
Mo Hayder
James Herbert
Carl Hiaasen
Jack Higgins (Harry Patterson)
Eric Hill
Susan Hill
Peter Hoeg
Wendy Holden
Sheila Holland (Charlotte Lamb)
Nick Hornby
Anthony Horowitz
Khaled Hosseini
Michel Houellebecq (Pronounced Welbek)
Conn Iggulden
Kazuo Ishiguro
P(hyllis) D(orthy) James (White)
Penny Jordan
M(ary) M(argaret) Kaye
Jonathan Kellerman
Leo Kessler (Charles Whiting)
Stephen King
Sophie Kinsella (Madeleine Wickham)
Dean Koontz
Judith Krantz (Judith Tarcher)
Hanif Kureishi
Lynda La Plante (Lynda Titchmarsh)
John le Carré (David Cornwell)
Andrea Levy
Robert Ludlum
Yann Martel
Alexander McCall Smith
Colleen McCullough
Ian McEwan
‘Andy McNab’ (Steven Billy Mitchell)
Alan Moore
Kate Mosse
Patrick O’Brian (Geoffrey Jenkins)
Edith Pargeter (Ellis Peters)
James Patterson
Rosamunde Pilcher
Dudley Pope (Bernard Egerton)
Terry Pratchett
Phillip Pullman
Ian Rankin
Claire Rayner
Douglas Reeman
Kathy Reichs
Ruth Rendell
J(oanna) K(athleen) Rowling
Salman Rushdie
Chris Ryan
Dora (Jessie) Saint (Miss Read)
Alice Sebold
Vikram Seth
Dr Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel)
Gerald Seymour
Tom Sharpe
Sarah Shears
Sidney Sheldon
Francesca Simon
Karin Slaughter
Zadie Smith
Danielle Steel
R(obert) L(awrence) Stine
Jessica Stirling (Peggy Coughlan and Hugh C. Rae)
Meera Syal
Craig Thomas
Sue Townsend
Joanna Trollope (Joanna Potter)
Alice Walker
Fay Weldon
Irvine Welsh
Mary Wesley
Phyllis A. Whitney
Jeanette Winterson
The Digital Age 2009–2021
Lee Child (James Dover Grant)
Suzanne Collins
E(rica) L(eonard) James
Peter James(Peter J James)
Steig Larsson
Hilary Mantel
George R(aymond) R(richard) Martin
Jo Nesbo
David Walliams
Appendix 1: Number of Individuals Out of Every 1000 Who Could Not Sign Their Name on a Marriage Register: 1896–1907
Appendix 2: Extract from Beatrice Harraden, ‘What Our Soldiers Read’, Cornhill Magazine, vol. XLI (Nov. 1916)
Appendix 3: Booksellers from Whose Returns the Bookseller Compiled Its Bestseller List During the 1930s and 1940s Under the Title ‘What the Other Fellow Is Selling’
Appendix 4: From the Mass Observation Archive (ref. FR 2537): ‘Reading in Tottenham, November 1947’
Favourite Fiction Subject
Fiction Authors
Appendix 5: From Mills and Boon, ‘A FINE ROMANCE … Is Hard to Find!’
Appendix 6: British Library Loans, 1987–8, Showing the Top 100 Authors as Recorded by the Bookseller (13 July 1990)
Appendix 7: Comparative Library Loans Between 1988 And 1998 By Genre
Appendix 8: Waterstone’s and Channel 4’s Survey to Discover the Greatest Books of the Twentieth Century (1996): The Following Are the Top Works of Fiction
Appendix 9: Which Companies Owned What Imprints at the End of the Twentieth Century
Appendix 10: From the Bookseller (Web Page: 20 Dec. 1999)
Appendix 11: Comparative Paperback Bestseller Lists Showing Relative Change Over the Last Decade of the Twentieth Century
1992
1999
Appendix 12: World Book Day 2000 Poll to Find Britain’s Favourite Writers
Notes
Revised Preface to the Third Edition
Notes to Introduction to the Second Edition
Notes to Chapter 1: Origins, Problems and Philosophy of the Bestseller
Notes to Chapter 2: How the British Read
Notes to Chapter 3: Genre—History and Form
Notes to Chapter 4: Literature for Children
Notes to Chapter 5: Further Thoughts on Literature for Children
Chapter 6: The Best-Selling Authors of the Twentieth Century
Bibliography
Name Index
Subject Index
Title Index
