The Star Weekly's fiction editor was responsible for the Star Weekly Novel published every Saturday for 35 years. For a significant part of that range the editor was Gwen Cowley. In addition to the novel the Star Weekly published short stories and serials. A 1946 rejection letter to an author describes what she looked for in choosing a work for publishing. "We like our stories to be full of action and colour, and also to have good strong plots. Our most urgent need at the moment is for good romances, sports, humor and adventure type of story. Our best length for short stories is around 3,500 w ..read more

From the earliest Star Weekly Novel that I've seen (May 1938) until October 1956 the art work on the front cover was virtually identical. A young, impossibly perfect Anglo-Saxon woman is always on the cover. For most of that period she is the only person shown. Doesn't matter what the genre - romance, western, historical, crime or thriller.  Finally in November 1956 the style changed and the scene matched the novel. The other change is the length is reduced from 15 1/2" to 14". Here are two examples, both Agatha Christie novels. The earlier cover is a perfect example - a young woman holdi ..read more

The three front covers in my last post are from The Philadelphia Inquirer's Sunday novel insert. They share three characteristics: a man and a woman, the woman is looking away and the man is looking at the woman. Tension in the air. The woman has doubts and the man is concerned. What about the rest of the Inquirers that I own? Here is an inventory. one woman, no man       6 more than one woman, no man     4 one woman and one man     19 one woman, two or more men      7     more than one woman, one or more men ..read more

In 1940 the population of the US was 131.7 million in 34.9 million households (1940 census). Pennsylvania's population was 9.9 million, second in the country after New York and the estimated number of households was 2.67 million using an average of 3.7 people per household. Based on 1938 and 1944 data I estimate Sunday circulation of The Philadelphia Inquirer was around 1.05 million in 1940 for a total of 54.6 million. Some of that circulation was likely in other states like New Jersey and New York but, assuming all in Pennsylvania, an amazing 40% of households received the Sunday edition. In ..read more

I have 40 of approximately 700 of The Philadelphia Inquirer Sunday novel inserts. In that small sample there are 15 artists whose work is seen on the front cover and inside. One colour predominates, the images have a solid look and, with five exceptions, the front cover art is not combined with text. This contrasts with the look of the Canadian Star Weekly novel inserts from those years. Well into the 1950s the Star Weekly covers looked like this example (artist William Book) regardless of the genre. One of the artists is Miriam Troop (1917-?) whose work is also seen o ..read more

Part III discussed my estimate of the surprising number of copies of novels that were published by The Philadelphia Inquirer as Sunday inserts over 14 years - 700 million. I use an estimate of 1,000,000 average circulation for the Sunday edition to arrive at that figure. This is based on actual figures that range from 1.035 million in 1938 to 1.093 million in 1947. I have identified 430 of the estimated 700 Inquirer issues. There are 295 authors in that group with Georges Simenon first with 19 titles and Ben Ames Williams and Faith Baldwin second with five. How many of these authors ..read more

Continuing the story from part II here are three more weekly newspaper novel supplements from The Philadelphia Inquirer, all from August 1941. The Inquirer (1829-), as far as I can tell, published the Gold Seal Novels on Sunday from May 1934 to September 1949 with no issues from May 1946 to April 1948 - approximately 700 issues. I have been able to identify 430 of them. During these years Sunday circulation was likely averaging close to a million copies per week, again, based on what I can find on line. This means around 700 million copies of the novels were sold by this one newspape ..read more

In part I I introduced mid-century weekly novel newspaper inserts. I recently picked up 40 examples from The Philadelphia Inquirer who published around 650 from 1934 to 1949. Unlike some of their US competitors who used Canadian produced supplements the Inquirer's were unique. Here is one example - Georges Simenon's A Crime in Holland from November 30, 1941. The insert is 20 pages (including front and back covers) with the cover and internal illustrations by Ben Dale (1889-1951) and an advertisement on the last page. The novel is quite short yet approximately 29% abridged for the ins ..read more

In part II I introduced a short-lived (1952-3) series of paperbacks from Avon Canada. Here's more about them. The early numbers (at least to C762) in the series do not have a price on the covers. Later books have the price (35 cents) on both covers. All titles have “Printed in Canada” on the back cover and the copyright page. The Canadian subsidiary of American News Corporation (474 Wellington Street West in Toronto), the owner of Avon, is the distributor. The number on all books is on the top left front cover and lower spine. Avon (Canadian printing) C788 (US printing numbe ..read more

Part I described the introduction of Avon paperbacks into Canada in late 1941. Here I'll skip ahead a decade to a short lived series of Avon titles that were renumbered for the Canadian market.  There are 62 titles starting at C751 and ending at C812, 57 of which I have identified. Most have no print date but the few I've seen that do are spring 1953. I'm guessing the series ran from 1952 to 1953. They sold for 35 cents. The US numbers range from 300 to 526. There are also four titles from Avon's Eton subsidiary in the series. Here are a few examples. Avon (Canadian printing) C757 ..read more