The Paperback Book:
Perfect Union of Form and Function
In place 1994. Copyright © 1994 Randy D. Ralph.
"The book is the ornament . . . and with any luck you read
it."
Nicholson Baker, "Books as Furniture,"The New Yorker
71(June 12, 1995):84-92.
The most perfect union of form and function in a book is the mass edition
paperback. Paperback books are inexpensive, unprepossessing and last just
long enough to do the job, which is to convey the information they contain
and, in the process, to entertain, educate, gladden or infuriate. What is
the raison d'être of the book if it is not to convey information? All
else is secondary.
Everyone has owned and read at least one paperback book. Everyone has
given one to a friend. Everyone has at least one stuffed away in a junk
drawer. Everyone has traded one for another, even Steven. The operative
word in all this is everyone. The humble paperback has put
more
information, literature and art within the reach of more people than any
other form at any other time. Yet the humble and powerful paperback has
been almost universally looked down on since Gertrude the Kangaroo hopped
onto the publishing scene in 1939 with the first Pocket Book in her pouch,
the plastic laminate already peeling from the covers. In the words of
Gertie's spiritual father, Robert de Graff:
-
My idea was to put out 25-cent books which could fit easily into a pocket
or purse and to provide them with attractive picture covers. Also, we
made them easy to read, with large well-spaced type. Those early books
were more readable in that respect than those being published today.
In the same year, Ian Ballantine, with a little cash from his father, and
a lot of good ideas for mass marketing, opened Penguin's first U.S. office
in New York. Gertie was not long without competition. The paperback
businesses begun by Ballantine and de Graff took off during World War II
as both firms were contracted to mass produce paperback editions of a wide
range of classics and popular titles for the GIs serving in Europe and the
Pacific. In August 1945, as atomic bombs were dropping on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, Ballantine had developed the connections and the found the cash
he needed to open Bantam Books with the blessing of the illustrious
Bennett Cerf. The rest, as they say, is history.
The first book I ever bought for myself was Catcher in the Rye. I
bought
it in paperback edition. Since then I have read more paperbacks than
anything else. I have read at least three or four a month since, whenever
I could afford to. Steinbeck, Shakespeare, Faulkner, Darwin, Leguin,
Dreiser, Joyce, Fowles, to name but a few. The list goes on and on.
Could I have done this in any other century and in any other form?
I rest
my case.
It pleases me greatly to know that good and caring people are looking
after all
those beautiful books from the past and that we will have them to admire
forever whenever the spirit moves us to do so. But on an otherwise bleak
winter day, just give me a cup of hot chocolate and a good paperback I
don't have to worry about spilling anything on. I'll curl up by the fire
until further notice, thank you.
Postscript: Ian Ballantine died in March,
1995.
Appendix: A Brief Bibliography on Paperbacks
- Barson, Michael S. "The paperback explosion: An American publishing
- phenomenon." Ph.D. diss., Bowling Green State University, Bowling
- Green, KY, 1995.
- Bonn, Thomas L. UnderCover: An illustrated history of American mass
- market paperbacks.
New York: Penguin Books, 1982.
- Carter, Robert A., "How it all began; A swift history of poswtar
paperback
- publishing," Publishers Weekly 235(May 26, 1989):S4-S8.
- ________., "Pioneers! O Pioneers! Reminiscences by some who were early on
- the scene. (50 years of paperpacks)," Publishers Weekly
235(May 26,
- 1989):S10-S12.
- ________, "The 40s and 50s. (Dawn of paperbacks and criticism of some
- advertising practices)," Publishers Weekly 235(May 26,
1989):54-57.
- Cole, John Y., ed. Books in Action: The Armed Services Editions.
- Washington: Library of Congress, 1984
- Crider, Allen B. Mass market publishing in America. Boston: G. K.
Hall,
- 1982.
- Davis, Kenneth C. Two-Bit Culture: The paperbacking of America.
Boston:
- Houghton Mifflin, 1984.
- Franklin, D. "The death of the hardback?" Bookseller 4565(Jun 18,
- 1993):20-21.
- Hutchinson, Tim Hely. "The mathematics of book publishing."
Bookseller
- 4325(Nov 11, 1988):1923-1926.
- Lodge, S. "Paperbacks: a silver lining?" Publishers Weekly 241
(May 2,
- 1994):30-33.
- Paten, I. "When the paperback revolution came." Bookseller
4656(Mar 17,
- 1995):28-32, 37-42, 44.
- Petersen, C. The Bantam story: Thirty years of paperback
publishing, rev.
- ed. New York: Bantam Books, 1975.
- Rabinovitch, Frank B. "A special chapter in American publishing."
- Imprint of the Stanford Libraries Associates 7 (Oct 1981):33-37.
- Server, Lee. Over my dead body: The sensational age of the American
- paperpack, 1945-1955
. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1994.
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