A Private Party

About Vintage Paperback Pulp Fiction:

A new revolution was underway at the start of the 1940s in America—a paperback revolution that would change the way publishers would produce and distribute books and the reading public would consume them. In 1939 a new publishing company—Pocket Books—stormed onto the scene with the publication of its first paperbound book. Unlike hardback books, these pulp paperbacks were available in drugstores, newsstands, bus and train stations, and cigar shops. The American public could not get enough of them. The popular pulp genres reflected the tastes of Americans during the 1930s and 1940s—mysteries, thrillers, and "hardboiled detective" stories were all the rage.

In the early 1950s new pulp fiction sub-genres emerged—science fiction, lesbian fiction, juvenile delinquent and sleaze, for instance—that would tantalize readers with gritty, realistic and lurid stories never seen before. Publishers had come to realize that sex sells. In a competitive frenzy for readers, they turned to alluring covers that often featured a sexy woman in some form of undress, along with a suggestive tag line that promised sex and violence within. To this day, the pulp cover art of these vintage paperback books are just as sought after as the books themselves were sixty years ago.