Thursday 28 March 2024

Newspaper Novels Part IV

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 are around (i.e. in print) today? Simenon certainly is - all 75 of his Maigret novels are  available from Penguin. Rex Stout, Stefan Zweig, Agatha Christie and F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby - May 23, 1937) are four more obvious ones. It takes some research to find others. I would guess a few dozen at most.

Here are three authors who are among the roughly 270 forgotten.

October 12, 1941 - Our Second Murder by Torrey Chanslor (Frederick A. Stokes, 1941)

May 11, 1941 - Little Hercules by Francis Wallace (M. S. Mill, 1939)

August 24 1941 - Hometown Angel by Reita Lambert (Macrae-Smith, 1940)

The Philadelphia Inquirer - October 12, 1941

The Philadelphia Inquirer - May 11, 1941

The Philadelphia Inquirer - August 24, 1941

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