What is the population of books that are the subject of this blog? How many books were published by Canadian paperback publishers in the 1940s and 50s? A few conditions first:
- excludes French language books,
- includes all variants and reprints,
- includes mass market paperbacks and digests but excludes pulps,
- excludes editions from Canadian branches of American publishers.
I'm including variants and reprints because this is a bibliographic census. There is a question whether reprints after 1959 of books published through 1959 by Harlequin Books should be counted. I will count if the same series number is used on the reprint.
The number of titles is easier to count - 1300 +/- 25. The number of books including variants and reprints is 1825 +/- 75. Below are the first and last books in these counts.
Beaver nn - May 1941
Harlequin 497 - December 1959
I can't help but think that Doctor Garth and his nurse (and, if formula holds true, future wife) are sad to see the 'fifties coming to a close.
ReplyDeleteThough Beaver publications were hardly a cheap, it's interesting that after eighteen years and seven months they were still priced at four cents more than the average Harlequin.