The Life and Death of Books

Inspired by Teresa's recent post at Making Light, I went to the Cader Books website to check out some old bestsellers from 100 and 75 years ago, and see how many of them I had heard of.

(Parenthetically, her comments about estates hews very close to my own experience -- deadling with estates is, at the very, very best of times, not all that awkward, difficult and complicated, and usually is less fun than that.)

(Also parenthetically, if anyone wants my ideal copyright length, it would be "life plus five years or fifty years from time of publication, whichever is longer." I might be persuaded to add language adding a little more time to works left unpublished at a writer's death, but maybe not.)

Fiction Bestsellers of 1906:

• 1. Coniston, Winston Churchill
  I know that this is the American Winston Churchill, and not the British statesman, but that's about all I know about him.
  
• 2. Lady Baltimore, Owen Wister
  He wrote The Virginian, which is still read a bit. This one I've never heard of.
  
• 3. The Fighting Chance, Robert W. Chambers
  We in skiffy-land remember him for The King in Yellow. No one else remembers him at all.
  
• 4. The House of a Thousand Candles, Meredith Nicholson
  Not a clue. Very much an author's name, though.
  
• 5. Jane Cable, George Barr McCutcheon
  Again, no clue.
  
• 6. The Jungle, Upton Sinclair
  A famous book I've never read, which almost single-handedly cleaned up the meat-packing industry.
  
• 7. The Awakening of Helena Ritchie, Margaret Deland
  No idea.
  
• 8. The Spoilers, Rex Beach
  If it's not about a gang of ne'er-do-wells who run around, yelling out the plots of the latest hit vaudeville shows in public, then I don't know what it is. (Though I wouldn't mind reading the book I just described. Maybe Howard Waldrop will write it.)
  
• 9. The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton
  Wharton is in the canon, and this book is still taught -- probably even read by people who aren't forced to do so. And wasn't it a movie a few years back? I read one Wharton book, back in college, and I think this was it -- I don't remember it very well.
  
• 10. The Wheel of Life, Ellen Glasgow
  Another forgotten book.

Fiction Bestsellers of 1931:

• 1. The Good Earth, Pearl S. Buck
  Buck won the Nobel Prize for Literature (though I think she's seen as an embarrassing winner these days, the They'd Rather Be Right of the literary set), and this book was made into a movie. Still, I don't think many people read it these days, though we've heard of it.
  
• 2. Shadows on the Rock, Willa Cather
  I know of Willa Cather, but I've never read her. And this isn't one of the titles I've heard of.
  
• 3. A White Bird Flying, Bess Streeter Aldrich
  Nope.
  
• 4. Grand Hotel, Vicki Baum
  Was this the source of the movie? (I bet it was, but I don't actually know so.)
  
• 5. Years of Grace, Margaret Ayer Barnes
  Nothing. Though I will note that, if you wanted to be a female bestseller in the first half of the 20th century, having three names was a big asset. (Perhaps even later than that, as Mary Higgins Clark can attest.)
  
• 6. The Road Back, Erich Maria Remarque
  He wrote All Quiet on the Western Front, which I haven't read. And this, which I'd never even heard of.
  
• 7. The Bridge of Desire, Warwick Deeping
  The combination of title and author sound very intriguing, but I bet it's a pot-boiler historical novel.
  
• 8. Back Street, Fannie Hurst
  No idea.
  
• 9. Finch's Fortune, Mazo de la Roche
  I'm surprised someone named "Mazo de la Roche" could be a bestseller in 1931.
  
• 10. Maid in Waiting, John Galsworthy
  I have, but haven't read, his "Forsythe Saga." This isn't even part of that.

Non-Fiction Bestsellers of 1931:

• 1. Education of a Princess, Grand Duchess Marie
  Don't know her, don't know why anyone would care about her education.
  
• 2. The Story of San Michele, Axel Munthe
  Never heard of it, but I'd bet it's the story of some miracle or other.
  
• 3. Washington Merry-Go-Round, anonymous (Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen)
  The "those political idiots" books were more gentle-hearted back in those days, but they still existed. I think I've heard of this one, but only very vaguely.
  
• 4. Boners: Being a Collection of Schoolboy Wisdom, or Knowledge as It Is Sometimes Written, compiled by Alexander Abingdon; illustrated by Dr. Seuss
  Someone does a book (or TV show, or whatever) like this about every decade -- for most of the 20th century, it was Art Linkletter -- and they're nearly always successes. I've heard of this, through the Dr. Seuss connection, but never read it.
  
• 5. Culbertson's Summary, Ely Culbertson
  I wonder what he was summarizing?
  
• 6. Contract Bridge Blue Book, Ely Culbertson
  Shades of last year's big poker boom, yes? Americans are always looking for books to tell them how to spend their free time in the same way that all of the other Americans are.
  
• 7. Fatal Interview, Edna St. Vincent Millay
  I've heard of her, but I thought she was a poet. I have no idea who was interviewing who, why, or what was fatal about it.
  
• 8. The Epic of America, James Truslow Adams
  Big "ain't America grand!" history, I'd expect. But I don't know it.
  
• 9. Mexico, Stuart Chase
  I can guess, but I don't know.
  
• 10. New Russia's Primer, Mikhail Ilin
  Again, I think I know what it is, but I've never heard of it.

I've read exactly one (The House of Mirth) of these thirty books, and only one other book (The King in Yellow) by any of their authors. Which I think goes to prove Teresa's point: books have a natural life, but even the biggest ones usually die, sooner or later.