Pocket Books 1,410,000
F Serenade, by James M. Cain. New American Library 1,402,765
F Cry Tough! by Irving Shulman. Avon 1,400,000
F A Swell Looking Girl, by Erskine Caldwell. New
American Library (orig) 1,397,593
Pocket Book of Boners. Pocket Books 1,387,000
F A Stranger in Paris (Christmas Holiday), by W. Somerset
Maugham. Bantam Books 1,381,000
F Nevada, by Zane Grey. Bantam Books 1,374,000
F The Case of the Drowsy Mosquito, by Erle Stanley
Gardner. Pocket Books 1,366,385
F The Case of the Turning Tide, by Erle Stanley Gardner.
Pocket Books 1,351,396
F The Revolt of Mamie Stover, by William Bradford
Huie. New American Library 1,350,000
F The Tormented, by Theodore Pratt. Gold Medal
Books (orig) 1,344,912
F The Case of the Empty Tin, by Erle Stanley Gardner.
Pocket Books 1,337,091
F The Damned, by John D. MacDonald. Gold Medal
Books (orig) 1,335,768
F The Case of the Shoplifter’s Shoe, by Erle Stanley
Gardner. Pocket Books 1,328,196
F Lady Chatterley’s Lover, by D. H. Lawrence. New
American Library 1,327,338
F The Spirit of the Border, by Zane Grey. Pocket Books 1,325,000
F The Case of the Borrowed Brunette, by Erle Stanley
Gardner. Pocket Books 1,323,406
F The Case of the Black-Eyed Blonde, by Erle Stanley
Gardner. Pocket Books 1,322,676
F Sanctuary, by William Faulkner. New American
Library 1,322,214
F Duchess Hotspur, by Rosamond Marshall. New
American Library 1,315,090
F The Razor’s Edge, by W. Somerset Maugham. Pocket
Books 1,310,000
F The Case of the Silent Partner, by Erle Stanley Gardner.
Pocket Books 1,301,027
F No Time for Sergeants, by Mac Hyman. New American
Library 1,300,000
F Rampart Street, by Everett and Olga Webber. Pocket
Books 1,300,000
F The Case of the Rolling Bones, by Erle Stanley Gardner.
Pocket Books 1,299,803
F A Place Called Estherville, by Erskine Caldwell. New
American Library 1,281,920
F Damon Runyon Favorites. Pocket Books 1,279,000
English-Spanish, Spanish-English Dictionary, comp. by
Carlos Castillo and Otto F. Bond. Pocket Books 1,295,000
My Flag Is Down, by James Maresca. Bantam Books 1,251,000
F The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, by Sloan Wilson.
Pocket Books 1,250,000
F Young Lonigan, by James T. Farrell. New American
Library 1,249,210
English Through Pictures (The Pocket Book of Basic
English), by I. A. Richards and C. M. Gibson. Pocket
Books (orig) 1,245,000
New American Webster Dictionary. New American
Library (orig) 1,239,121
F Cocotte, by Theodore Pratt. Gold Medal Books (orig) 1,237,773
F Golden Sleep, by Vivian Connell. New American
Library 1,237,140
F The Bigger They Come, by A. A. Fair. Pocket Books 1,233,555
F Hill Girl, by Charles Williams. Gold Medal Books
(orig) 1,226,890
F Farewell, My Lovely, by Raymond Chandler. Pocket
Books 1,225,000
F The Case of the Gold-Digger’s Purse, by Erle Stanley
Gardner. Pocket Books 1,223,570
F The Adventures of Ellery Queen. Pocket Books 1,208,000
F The Thin Man, by Dashiell Hammett. Pocket Books 1,208,000
F Pocket Book of Modern American Short Stories, ed. by
Philip Van Doren Stern. Pocket Books (orig) 1,205,000
F 13 French Street, by Gil Brewer. Gold Medal Books
(orig) 1,200,365
Sex Habits of American Women, by Fritz Wittels.
Avon (orig) 1,200,000
F The Cautious Amorist, by Norman Lindsay. Bantam
Books 1,198,000
F The Best of Damon Runyon, ed. by E. C. Bentley.
Pocket Books 1,195,000
F The Wild Palms, by William Faulkner. New American
Library 1,171,245
F The Wayward Bus, by John Steinbeck. Bantam Books 1,167,000
Cartoon Laffs. True Magazine. Gold Medal Books
(orig) 1,162,375
F The Case of the Half-Wakened Wife, by Erle Stanley
Gardner. Pocket Books 1,159,418
F Murder Up My Sleeve, by Erle Stanley Gardner.
Pocket Books 1,157,160
F The New Adventures of Ellery Queen. Pocket Books 1,155,000
F Destry Rides Again, by Max Brand. Pocket Books 1,138,000
F Darling, It’s Death, by Richard Prather. Gold Medal
Books (orig) 1,125,112
F The Case of the Drowning Duck, by Erle Stanley
Gardner. Pocket Books 1,122,344
F The Dutch Shoe Mystery, by Ellery Queen. Pocket
Books 1,122,000
I Never Left Home, by Bob Hope. Simon and Schuster 1,121,088
F Mildred Pierce, by James M. Cain. New American
Library 1,112,161
F Knock on Any Door, by Willard Motley. New American
Library 1,105,045
F I Have Gloria Kirby, by Richard Himmel. Gold
Medal Books (orig) 1,100,617
More Dennis the Menace, by Hank Ketcham. Avon 1,100,000
F The Chinese Orange Mystery, by Ellery Queen.
Pocket Books 1,098,000
F 1984, by George Orwell. New American Library 1,093,975
F Rawhide Range, by Ernest Haycox. Popular Library
(orig) 1,090,000
F The D.A. Calls It Murder, by Erle Stanley Gardner.
Pocket Books 1,088,299
F The Case of the Smoking Chimney, by Erle Stanley
Gardner. Pocket Books 1,076,503
The Pocket Entertainer, ed. by Shirley Cunningham.
Pocket Books (orig) 1,068,000
F The Other Room, by Worth T. Hedden. Bantam
Books 1,065,000
F The Young Lions, by Irwin Shaw. New American
Library 1,063,730
F Never Love a Stranger, by Harold Robbins. Bantam
Books 1,062,440
F What Makes Sammy Run, by Budd Schulberg. Bantam
Books 1,056,000
F The Case of the Careless Kitten, by Erle Stanley
Gardner. Pocket Books 1,051,799
F The Beach House, by Stephen Longstreet. Popular
Library 1,050,000
F Mistress Glory, by Susan Morley. New American
Library 1,049,040
F The Case of the Perjured Parrot, by Erle Stanley
Gardner. Pocket Books 1,046,912
F The Case of the Lonely Heiress, by Erle Stanley Gardner.
Pocket Books 1,043,266
F Halfway House, by Ellery Queen. Pocket Books 1,043,000
F The Street, by Ann Petry. New American Library 1,042,505
The Sexual Side of Marriage, by Max J. Exner. Pocket
Books 1,040,000
F Cassidy’s Girl, by David Goodis. Gold Medal Books
(orig) 1,036,497
F The Case of the Backward Mule, by Erle Stanley
Gardner. Pocket Books 1,032,196
F The Spanish Cape Mystery, by Ellery Queen. Pocket
Books 1,019,000
F Jeeves, by P. G. Wodehouse. Pocket Books 1,012,000
F Ramrod, by Luke Short. Popular Library 1,012,000
Martha Logan’s Meat Cook Book. Pocket Books (orig) 1,010,000
F Never Come Morning, by Nelson Algren. Avon 1,010,000
F The Night Life of the Gods, by Thorne Smith. Pocket Books 1,009,000
F The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway. Bantam Books 1,007,000
Pocket Book of Crossword Puzzles, by Margaret
Petherbridge. Pocket Books 1,001,000
F Bonjour Tristesse, by Françoise Sagan. Dell 1,000,000
F Butterfield 8, by John O’Hara. Avon 1,000,000
F Fast Company, by Marco Page. Pocket Books 1,000,000
F I Can Get It for You Wholesale, by Jerome Weidman. Avon 1,000,000
BEST SELLER SUBJECTS
BEST SELLER SUBJECTS
Many individuals, groups and organizations are interested in finding out
what the best sellers are in certain general categories. I have tried to
cover in this section the subjects most frequently asked about. Sales
figures for cook books are without doubt those most often sought.
Religion perhaps comes next (the individual title most asked about above
all other books is the Bible). There is interest in the sales of mystery
and detective stories, and, to a less extent, in “westerns” and
juveniles. Questions about reference books are usually concerned with
their quality. Their standing over the years, implying frequent
revisions (although number of editions is not mentioned here unless
there has been a change of title) is reflected in sales figures. The
same statement is applicable to subscription volumes and sets.
“Novelties” are included because of the stir they often make although
they are usually short-lived. The reverse is true of poetry. One of the
most honored of the creative arts over the centuries, its sales in the
short span of time and place covered here, have been comparatively
small.
COOKERY
Probably more questions are asked in the field of best sellers about the
Bible, next about cook books. All sorts of people and business
organizations ask what the best-selling cook books are and how many
copies of cook books are published and sold. Most interested are the
magazines, especially those designed for the woman at home, and next the
producers of radio and TV programs. It is no coincidence that, next to
the Bible and books on religious subjects, cook books have sold the best
and the most consistently in the non-fiction field since 1895. It is
quite apparent from a study of the best seller lists that only the need
for advice on feeding the spirit surpasses the need for advice--and
books--on feeding the body.
Paradoxically, cook books are seldom seen on the bookstore reports that
appear weekly, monthly, and annually in newspapers and magazines. When a
new, especially salable, and well-publicized cook book is brought out or
when a new edition of an older, standard cook book is published, it does
appear on these lists for a short time. Booksellers are not averse to
listing standard books that sell year in and year out on their reports,
but such reports, dominated as they would be by the Bible, dictionaries,
cook books and other standard books would become monotonous. What
periodical would care to publish them?
Figures on the number of new cook books published annually have been
compiled by the _Publishers’ Weekly_ only since 1952. Cook books have
always been included in the category of domestic science, or, more
recently, home economics. This is one of the smallest categories. In
1955 it comprised 255 titles out of 12,589 new books and new editions
published in the United States. Though small, it is one of the most
important in the book trade and therefore for the general public. It is
quite likely that the number of poor cook books in that 255 is
infinitesimal in proportion to the number of poor novels in the 2073
issued in 1955.
Nearly every cook book is planned to meet a particular need or some
special taste. They vary from the general compendium for the household
and from quantity cook books such as those for large institutions to
little volumes concerned solely with cooking such specialties as
mushrooms or omelettes. There are national and regional cook books,
collections of the favorite recipes of well-known persons, books on
various techniques such as barbecuing or using an electric mixer, and
books for people on every kind of diet. Many of the new cook books and
the new editions of standard books have resulted from the many new
methods of cookery and the new ways of packaging foods developed during
recent years. The number of new books and new editions has remained
fairly steady during the past four years: 102 in 1952; 86 in 1953; 77 in
1954; and 91 in 1955.
The leading best seller among cook books, the _Better Homes and Gardens
Cook Book_ is also one of the top best sellers in all fields. It ranks
fourth in the overall list of best sellers during the past sixty years,
first in the list of best sellers in hardbound editions only. The top
ten on the cookbook best seller list are mostly the standard
encyclopedic type that are reissued from time to time in new editions
embodying new culinary methods. They range in age from the old standby,
familiarly called “Fannie Farmer” or the “Boston Cook Book” to the _Good
and Easy Cook Book_ of 1954. A number of the books are sponsored by
women’s magazines or by food companies.
Included among cook books are the closely allied diet books. They appear
farther down the list, as do also more specialty cook books. Mabel
Claire’s _Modern Cook Book_ has been sold throughout the United States
through department stores under the name of each particular store, viz.
_Smith’s Cook Book_. Next in age to “Fannie Farmer” among the cook books
which have sold over half a million copies is _Diet and Health with Key
to the Calories_. A sensational seller in the 20’s, it appeared on the
annual lists of 1922 and 1923, rose to top place in non-fiction in both
1924 and 1925, and appeared for the fifth year on the 1926 list. _Look
Younger Live Longer_ was third on the best seller list of 1950, first in
1951. One cook book not listed here because its sales records are no
longer available was a wartime best seller of 1917, _Better Meals for
Less Money_.
* * * * *
Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book. 1931 Meredith 5,806,586
The Pocket Cook Book, by Elizabeth Woody. 1942 Pocket Books 3,800,000
Betty Crocker’s Picture Cook Book. 1950 McGraw-Hill 3,500,000
The American Woman’s Cook Book, ed. by Ruth Berolzheimer.
1938 Garden City Books 3,400,000
The Boston Cooking School Cook Book, by Fannie Farmer.
1896. Ninth ed. by Wilma Lord Perkins. 1951 Little, Brown 3,058,778
The Service Cook Book, by Ida Bailey Allen.
1933 Service, Inc. 2,750,000
Betty Crocker’s Good and Easy Cook Book.
1954 Simon and Schuster 2,400,000
The Good Housekeeping Cook Book. 1933 Rinehart 1,190,048
The Joy of Cooking, by Irma S. Rombauer. 1931 (The
New Joy of Cooking, with Marion Rombauer Becker.
1951) Bobbs-Merrill 1,855,434
You Are What You Eat, by Victor H. Lindlahr. 1940
Journal of Lifetime Living 1,730,000
The Settlement Cook Book, by Mrs. Simon Kander. 1930
Simon and Schuster 1,200,000
Martha Logan’s Meat Cook Book. 1942 Pocket Books 1,010,000
Modern Cook Book, by Mabel Claire. 1932 Greenberg 900,000
Ann Pillsbury’s Baking Book. 1950 Barnes 840,000
Diet and Health with Key to the Calories, by Lulu Hunt
Peters. 1922 Reilly & Lee 800,000
Look Younger, Live Longer, by Gayelord Hauser. 1950
Farrar, Straus and Cudahy 600,000
Other Successful Cook Books
Not inclusive by any means, this list is representative of the variety
of successful books in the field. Here are some of the culinary
specialties, a teen-age cook book, diet books, and the high-priced, _The
Gourmet Cookbook_, which, at $10, appeals to the audience indicated by
its title. _Eat and Reduce_ has also had a large sale in South America;
its publisher claims that it has had the largest sale there of any
American book in Spanish translation.
* * * * *
Cooking for Two, by Janet Hill. Little, Brown 422,172
America’s Cook Book. Scribner 375,000
Duncan Hines Adventures in Good Cooking and The Art
of Carving in the Home. Adventures in Good Eating, Inc. 300,000
Sunset Barbecue Book. Lane 246,439
Duncan Hines Dessert Book. Pocket Books 225,000
Better Homes and Gardens Junior Cook Book. Meredith 156,910
Toll House Recipes, by Ruth Wakefield. Little, Brown 135,000
Better Homes and Gardens Diet Book. Meredith 134,072
Barbecue Cook Book. Lane 132,903
The Gourmet Cookbook. Gourmet Distributing Corp. 115,000
Let’s Cook It Right, by Adelle Davis. Harcourt, Brace 105,452
The Gold Cook Book, by Louis P. deGouy. Greenberg 100,000
Ida Bailey Allen Sandwich Book. 100,000
DETECTION AND MYSTERY
Almost a condensed version of the overall best seller list is this
record of the best sellers in detection and mystery, so close to the top
of all best sellers are these books by Mickey Spillane and Erle Stanley
Gardner, which of course lead in their own field. This is the biggest
list both in number of titles and in total sales of all in the best
seller special subjects section. There are 112 books which have sold
half a million copies or more on this list, and 56 of them are by Erle
Stanley Gardner and/or A. A. Fair, the pen name he uses for his stories
which feature the detectives Bertha Cool and Donald Lam. Next in
numerical representation is Ellery Queen, with 29 titles, including one
appearing here under the pen name of Barnaby Ross. But Mickey Spillane
leads all the rest in sales of individual titles. He has written only
seven books, but they are the top seven on the list.
The original dates of publication are included and the original
publishers except when books are out of print in their original
editions, in which case the name of the present reprint publisher is
given. The dates range from 1908 when Mary Roberts Rinehart’s _The
Circular Staircase_ (in 1920 turned into a hit play, _The Bat_, and
later into a movie) was first published, up to 1954 and _The Glass
Village_ by Ellery Queen.
I have not attempted to draw any distinguishing lines inside the
detection and mystery field. Everything is included which would fall
into the general classification--detection, spy stories, pursuit
stories, psychological mysteries, gangster tales, romantic mysteries,
and stories of violent action. The list illustrates well the radical
changes that have occurred in public taste in this field, changes which
can be considered greater than in any other single subject of creative
writing.
Probably the earliest American best seller (outside of Edgar Allan Poe’s
mystery tales and their big sales did not occur in his lifetime) was
_The Leavenworth Case_ by Anna Katharine Green. It was published in 1878
and has sold over half a million copies. Louis Vance, Meredith
Nicholson, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Mary Roberts Rinehart were authors
who appeared regularly on all the annual best seller lists after the
turn of the century. In the late ’20’s S. S. Van Dine created Philo
Vance, a new type of detective. Through the ’20’s and ’30’s Agatha
Christie was considered the favorite of highly literate detective story
readers. Many of her books appear on this list of best sellers, among
them the one that made her famous, The _Murder of Roger Ackroyd_. _The
Thin Man_ came along in 1934, introducing a new sort of writing in
detective fiction. This story, of swift action and terse phrasing, was
the starting point of a new school, the hard-boiled mystery, from which
has emerged the sex-and-guts detective of the ’50’s.
In an article in the _Saturday Review_ called _A Cosmic View of the
Private Eye_, John Paterson writes in praise of the hardboiled detective
as evolved by Hammett and Chandler, of the change from “the
‘transcendant’ detective of an older, safely established order to one in
a bewildering world of disintegrated values.... He is, in the final
analysis, the apotheosis of the everyman of good will who, alienated by
the values of his time, seeks desperately and mournfully to live without
shame, to live without compromise to his integrity.”
In 1946 a select group of readers of _The Pleasures of Publishing_, a
bi-weekly publication of the Columbia University Press, cast their votes
for Dorothy Sayers as their favorite detective story writer. In order of
choice, following her, were John Dickson Carr (Carter Dickson), Erle
Stanley Gardner, A. Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Raymond
Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Manning Coles and Rex Stout. A Gallup Poll,
in 1950, in which 53 per cent of those questioned were college
graduates, showed Erle Stanley Gardner as their selection for the best
mystery writer of all time.
In the early 1950’s Mickey Spillane’s seven books featuring the ruthless
detective Mike Hammer led all others in sales of individual titles. As
far as total sales of all his books go, Spillane is not up to Gardner.
His sales are about 27,000,000; the sales of all Gardner’s books,
including Canadian sales, amount to over 86,000,000 copies. Erle Stanley
Gardner must be considered, then, the most popular writer of detective
stories in this country, in fact the most popular twentieth century
writer of fiction. He is definitely not of the hard-boiled school; he
presents a deductive problem usually resolved in a dramatic courtroom
scene starring Perry Mason, the lawyer-detective. Perry Mason is not the
rough and ready type. In fact he is so gentlemanly that the suggestion
has been made that it would be an interesting experiment to send the
frustrated Della Street, Mason’s secretary, and the frustrated Archie
Goodwin, whose romantic episodes are always being interrupted by his
boss, Nero Wolfe, off on a weekend together in Atlantic City.
The first Perry Mason mystery, _The Case of the Velvet Claws_, was
published in 1933. It was dictated to a stenographer in three and
one-half days. Nor has Mr. Gardner let down since. He is a prodigious
writer. In 1956 the publication of his fiftieth Perry Mason story was
celebrated. In addition he has written over 30 other books including the
A. A. Fair mysteries, a series featuring the “D.A.” as detective, and
three books of non-fiction--over 80 books in 23 years.
When Mickey Spillane’s fifth thriller, _The Big Kill_, was published in
its paperbound edition, something of a record in print orders was made.
The printing consisted of 2,500,000 copies and at the same time new
printings of one million copies each of his first four books were made.
Although Spillane is the mystery phenomenon of the 1950’s he must be
considered only third in line in popularity of American mystery story
writers of all time. Ellery Queen, pseudonym of two men, Frederic Dannay
and Manfred B. Lee, estimates the sale of his works at 35,000,000 plus a
foreign sale of from 15 to 20 million. Queen, the son of a New York City
police official, is always the hero-detective of the books that bear
his name as author. His two originators have published 32 books since
their first in 1929, _The Roman Hat Mystery_. They have also written a
number of juvenile mysteries under the name of Ellery Queen, Jr.
Probably next in order of popularity with American detective story
readers is the English writer, Agatha Christie. Her detectives, of the
deductive school, are principally Hercule Poirot and the quiet little
Englishwoman, Miss Marple. Running close to the Christie novels in sales
are those by Brett Halliday, featuring the man of action, Mike Shayne,
tough-fisted and with an eye for blondes--or brunettes.
Figures for total sales of the output of other popular writers have been
estimated mainly from the reports of the paperbound publishers, who are
responsible for the big sales in this field: over seven million, Richard
S. Prather; over six million, Wade Miller, John Dickson Carr (Carter
Dickson), and William Ard; over five million, Raymond Chandler, Leslie
Charteris, E. Phillips Oppenheim, George Harmon Coxe; over four million,
Mary Roberts Rinehart (her total sales, including hardbound books are
much greater than this. She has written well over 50 books, but not all
of them mysteries.); over three million, Georges Simenon, Dashiell
Hammett, F. Van Wyck Mason, Rex Stout and Helen Reilly; over two
million, Frances and Richard Lockridge, James Hadley Chase, Bruno
Fischer, Leslie Ford, Helen McCloy, Mignon Eberhart, Henry Kane, Edgar
Wallace, Bill Ballinger, Sax Rohmer, Ed Lacy, and Peter Cheyney.
Individual detective stories which appeared on the annual best seller
lists but not on the overall mystery best seller list, some of their
sales figures not available now, are, chronologically, _The Hound of the
Baskervilles_, by A. Conan Doyle (100,569 sold), _The House of a
Thousand Candles_, by Meredith Nicholson (289,944 sold), _The Brass
Bowl_, by Louis J. Vance (184,071 sold), _The Port of Missing Men_, by
Meredith Nicholson (150,429 sold), _The Black Bag_, by Louis J. Vance
(35,247 sold), _The Man in Lower Ten_, by Mary Roberts Rinehart (113,360
sold), _The Window at the White Cat_, by Mary Roberts Rinehart (152,002
sold), _The Pawns Count_, by E. Phillips Oppenheim, _The Greene Murder
Case_, by S. S. Van Dine, _The Bishop Murder Case_, by S. S. Van Dine,
and _The Door_, by Mary Roberts Rinehart.
I, the Jury, by Mickey Spillane. 1947 Dutton 4,441,837
The Big Kill, by Mickey Spillane. 1951 Dutton 4,158,840
My Gun Is Quick, by Mickey Spillane. 1950 Dutton 3,912,419
The Long Wait, by Mickey Spillane. 1951 Dutton 3,774,374
Kiss Me, Deadly, by Mickey Spillane. 1952 Dutton 3,773,045
One Lonely Night, by Mickey Spillane. 1951 Dutton 3,737,882
Vengeance Is Mine! by Mickey Spillane. 1950 Dutton 3,649,500
The Case of the Lucky Legs, by Erle Stanley Gardner.
1934 Morrow 2,744,413
The Case of the Curious Bride, by Erle Stanley Gardner.
1934 Morrow 2,315,388
The Case of the Sulky Girl, by Erle Stanley Gardner.
1933 Morrow 2,184,168
The Case of the Lame Canary, by Erle Stanley Gardner.
1937 Morrow 2,119,362
The Case of the Dangerous Dowager, by Erle Stanley
Gardner. 1937 Morrow 2,073,589
The Case of the Substitute Face, by Erle Stanley Gardner.
1938 Morrow 2,040,167