Robert Fair deGraff and Pocket Books

Earlier we asked whether the modern American paperback emerged from the pulp magazine publishers whose names were to become the staple of paperbacks: Dell, Fawcett, Popular Library, Avon, or if they developed from the traditional publishing houses. A third option can be offered: they emerged from developments in Europe.

From 1845 a German publisher, Tachnitz, had been producing limited runs of paperbound books in several languages, including French and English. In 1931, a young German enterperner, Kurt Enoch, thinking he could bring the books to a larger market, established Albatross Books with a branch office in London. (The name was chosen because the word "albatross" is common to most European languages.) The books he issued had clean pictureless paper covers in a tall, narrow 7 1/8" x 4 1/4" format, a look Enoch considered "dignified". His success--- almost immediate as he aggressively promoted the Albatross logo---allowed him to buy-out Tachnitz. As quickly as it came, success vanished when the rising Nazi powers seized control of his presses and shut him down. Enoch fled to America where even greater success awaited.

In the meantime, the sales of Albatross books in London did not go unnoticed. England's Bodley Head Publishing House, which in its heyday had given the world the works of Oscar Wilde and Anatole France, was in serious decline under the leadership of Allan Lane, who was trying desperately to rescue the old company. Noting the strong sales of Albatross Books, and noting that in America some publishers had had success with F.W. Woolworth as an outlet instead of the usual book stores, he devised a name, Penquin, designed a logo and cover scheme unashamedly in imitation of Albatross, and presented Woolworth's head buyer with a plan to publish ten "high-class" titles. There was much trepidation about his plan; conventional wisdom held that only lower-classes purchase paperbacks, and his first ten titles were highbrow. But the plan worked. Without two days Woolworth sold out; within the year, Penguins books were a rage throughout England.

Cut now back to America.

The real battle ground among publishers for new markets lay in the territory between the pulp magazines and the first edition publishers, the expanding realm of hardback cheap paper reprints. Grosset and Dunlap, the leader in the field, was joined by A.L. Burt, Blue Ribbon, Hurst, and Doubleday's Garden City. Most sold for around 50 cents. Miniature-sized hardback reprints, pioneered in the twentieth century by Modern Library, were being published by Scribner (Modern Student Library), Putnam (Ariel Books), Knopf (Borzoi ) and Dutton (Everyman Library). These were more expensive than the cheap hardbacks, but seldom cost over a dollar. Mail Order and Book Clubs further crowded the field, led by Sears and Roebuck which sold its cheap-paper Reader's Library books at the absurdly low price of ten cents---a loss-leader intended to attract people to its catalogues.

The President of Blue Ribbon, Robert Fair deGraff, realized he had to lower the 50 cent price of his reprints. With a goal of a twenty-five book that would capture enough of the market from competitors to turn a profit, he named his experiment Triangle Books, horribly cheap hardbacks printed on course pulp paper. He managed to get the price down to 38 cents each before stalling. (A breakdown of the costs of publishing a book can be found in the Pocket Books index.)

Fair deGraff would not be discouraged. He saw the success of Penguin with Woolworth and reasoned America, with its greater number of department and drug stores, should be able to surpass Lane's profits. He decided to issue a paper bound book with three significant changes. First, he would cut the size of the book to 6 1/2 x 4 1/2; second, he would glue the pages instead of stitching them...a newly invented glue encouraged him; and third, he would gamble with a huge press run ten times that of Penguin.

The first barrier to his scheme: raising money.

The owners of Blue Ribbon, which had tolerated his experiments with Triangle Books, nixed the idea.

Next, Fair deGraff visited Grossett-Dunlap, and again was turned down. (Founder Alexander Grossett had died a few years earlier and his son, Donald, feared losing family control of the business if he dumped money into Fair deGraff's idea.) His next stop was Simon and Schuster.

Simon and Schuster had founded their publishing firm in the hope of developing a mainstream publishing house in the tradition of Harpers and Scribners. But lack of money had limited their initial efforts to cross-word puzzle books and, oddly, hardback reprints of Haldeman-Julius' Little Blue Books. They hit paydirt---big time---when they republished in hardback Will Durant's The Story of Philosophy. Not only did they suddenly have money to invest, but experience had already taught them to look in unusual places. Indeed, Fair deGraff soon learned that Simon and Schuster had also been following the doings of Allan Lane in England and were already toying the idea of launching their own paperback line---they even had a name picked out, "Twentieth Century Library", to sell at twenty-cents each.

Fair deGraff suggested a partnership, the price of twenty-five cents, and the name "Pocket Books" to advertise as an asset what was strictly a cost-cutting measure, a book small enough to fit in a purse or back pocket. He also suggested a logo---a kangaroo---that would echo Enoch's Albatross and Lane's Penguin. Schuster, with Simon joining later, agreed.

To increase prestige for the suspect little paperback, he approached Macy's instead of Woolworth and found Macy aware of Woolworth's sales figures in England. Hearing of the deal, Liggett's Department Stores leaped in, hoping to block Woolworth from handling the books. The second barrier, finding a willing retail outlet, fell.

Fair deGraff issued ten paperback titles, headed by James Hilton's The Lost Horizon, with a press run of about 20,000 copies each.

When both Macy's and Liggett's sold-out in less then twenty-four hours, most of the other barriers fell as well. Suddenly Fair deGraff's biggest problem was getting enough books printed to handle orders that were coming from across America.

The Third American Paperback Revolution had begun.