Books made of cheap paper become a cultural genre

As Beadle's Dime Novels withered and died, magazine publisher Street and Smith entered the game with their own version of the Dime Novel; indeed, today when people think of the Dime Novel they often mistake Street and Smith's for Beadle's. Unlike Beadle, which had primarily promoted the frontier hero, Street and Smith featured urban-style champions of justice, Pinkerton detectives, private investigator Nick Carter, rags-to-riches Horatio Alger, Jr.

Two years after they began, 1891, Frank Munsey, publisher of the youth magazine "Argosy", reasoned that the second paperback revolution demonstrated people cared more about the story than how it was printed and took a major gamble by changing to a newly invented, very cheap pulp paper. He guessed right. Readers switched en masse from the paperback dime novel to the pulp fiction magazine. During the next fifteen years, Munsey would accumulate a personal fortune in excess of nine million dollars.

Street and Smith responded to Munsey's threat very quickly. They abandoned the Dime Novel in favor of their own pulp fiction magazines. By 1910, Street and Smith had several successful titles running monthly; the Nick Carter novels became "Detective Story", the Buffalo Bill novels became "Western Story" and so forth.

The Munsey pulp fiction triumph and the Street and Smith conversion virtually wiped out what little was left of the paperback book business. Why would anyone purchase for a dime a single novel in book form when for a nickel he could purchase a pulp magazine with a full-lenth novel, several short stories, a means of communicating with other readers, and numerous other features?

Meanwhile, another major development shook the traditional book publishing world when publishers arose to meet the swelling demands for "real books" that were cheap. Fueled by the growing numbers of immigrants who wanted to at least appear successful, these publishers sold bindings more aggressively than content or paper quality; that is, they wrapped pulp paper in hardbark. Grosset and Dunlap, founded in 1898, Burt, Triangle, Hurst, and Blue Ribbon issued reprints of titles on cheap paper in full-size hardback. The characters and even titles of the Dime Novels now re-appeared in hardback. With these books selling at about 50 cents each, need for paperbacks was further reduced.

As the twentieth century opened, there appeared to be no future for the paperback book.

Would the modern paperback emerge from the pulp paper trade?

There is much to suggest it would. First, to save costs, many magazine publishers switched to "digest size"---the size of many of the early paperback books.

George T. DelaCorte founded Dell Publishing in 1922 with "War Birds" pulp magazine. In a few years he would experiment with a four-color process of illustration that would lead to the birth of the American comic book. A minor employee at the time, Helen Mayer, would rise through the Dell corporation to become by 1950 the "First Lady" of the paperback book business.

Brothers Wilford and Roscoe Fawcett entered the field with pulps. "True" became one of the best selling magazines in America, "Captain Marvel" evolved into a comic book.

Aaron A Wyn, an ex-Idaho school teacher, established Ace Pulp Magazines.

Ned L. Pines founded Standard Publishing, issued "College Life" on pulp, and eventually became Popular Library.

Authors, like publishers, went from pulps to paperbacks. The list is a Who's Who: Edgar Rice Burroughs (John Carter and Tarzan), Dashnell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, H.P. Lovecraft, Robert Bloch, Ray Bradbury, Max Brand....the list goes on and on.

Genres and fictional characters important to the paperback market originated in the pulps, and again the list seems endless: Destry Rides Again, Dr. Kildare, Conan the Barbarian, Tarzan. The groundwork for Harlequin Paperback Romances was laid by Anita Fairgrieve, an editor at Street and Smith, created "Love Story Magazine", a romance pulp the best-selling pulp of the 20's and 30's. (Contrary to popular belief, pulp fiction was less about violence than romance).

But despite this evidence, it is still difficult to make the case that the American Paperback sprung from the pulp magazine. It was mainstream publishing that launched the third and finally successful Paperback Revolution....The pulp publishers leaped in later, taking their artists and authors with them.