Collins White Circle Authors Part VII

There is a fascinating wikipedia entry listing the top selling authors of fiction. The list ranks authors with estimated sales of at least 100,000,000 - some 80 in all. It seems to me that the list is as well documented as any such list needs to be.

Wm. Collins Sons & Co. Canada Ltd. published three of the list's authors in their White Circle imprint. Agatha Christie (2 - 4 billion sold - tied with Shakespeare at number 1) and Mickey Spillane (100-200 million - 36th on the list) have been the subjects of earlier posts. Here we'll look at the third author - Erskine Caldwell (80-100 million - 63rd).

Collins published three of Caldwell's 25 novels - Tobacco Road (first published 1932), Trouble in July (1940) and A House in the Uplands (1946). Tobacco Road is Collins most reprinted WC with six printings while Trouble in July has four printings and A House in the Uplands one. It is interesting to note that Collins didn't publish Caldwell's best selling novel - God's Little Acre. In Canada that was left to a small publisher, Anglo-American Publishing, to pirate the American edition. All cover art is by unknown.

White Circle 257 - 1946

White Circle 335 - 1948

White Circle 346 - 1948