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Concept
Pocket Books
Summary
Pocket Books is a division of Simon & Schuster that primarily publishes paperback books.
Pocket Books produced the first mass-market, pocket-sized paperback books in the United States in early 1939 and revolutionized the publishing industry. The German Albatross Books had pioneered the idea of a line of color-coded paperback editions in 1931 under Kurt Enoch, and Penguin Books in Britain had refined the idea in 1935 and had one million books in print by the following year.
Pocket Books was founded by Richard L. Simon, M. Lincoln ("Max") Schuster and Leon Shimkin, partners of Simon & Schuster, along with Robert de Graff.
Penguin's success inspired entrepreneur Robert de Graff, who partnered with publishers Simon & Schuster to bring it to the American market. Priced at 25 cents and featuring the logo of Gertrude the kangaroo (named after the mother-in-law of the artist, Frank Lieberman), Pocket Books' editorial policy of reprints of light literature, popular non-fiction, and mysteries was coordinated with its strategy of selling books outside the traditional distribution channels. The small format size, 4.25" by 6.5" (10.8 cm by 16.5 cm) and the fact that the books were glued rather than stitched, were cost-cutting innovations.
The first ten numbered Pocket Book titles published in May 1939 with a print run of about 10,000 copies each:
Lost Horizon by James Hilton
Wake Up and Live by Dorothea Brande
Five Great Tragedies by William Shakespeare
Topper by Thorne Smith
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
Enough Rope by Dorothy Parker
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler
The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
Bambi by Felix Salten
This list includes seven novels, the most recent being six years old (Lost Horizons, 1933), two classics (Shakespeare and Wuthering Heights, both out of copyright), one mystery novel, one book of poetry (Enough Rope), and one self-help book.
The edition of Wuthering Heights hit the bestseller list, and by the end of the first year Pocket Books had sold more than 1.
Official source
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