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Has anyone read any books there were bestsellers in their heyday but aren't that widely known today? Are any of these worth checking out?
Hmmm, well the concept of "bestsellers" has only existed for the last few hundred years since the development of the printing press and bookbinding. Before that books were only found in monastaries and with the rich. So I have a tough time qualifying an answer for you.
I mean are we talking Poe/Crane/Mark Twain 19th century novel territory (where books started reaching the masses) or 5th century BC Art of War Sun Tzu/written on bamboo slips and papyrus leaves stuff?
Edna Ferber's novels sold quite well when she was writing in the 1920's and '30's. "Cimarron" (1929) tells the story of the Oklahoma land rush in fictional form, "Show Boat" is about life aboard a Mississippi River Boat stretching from the 1880's to the 1920's, and "So Big" (for which she won a Pulitzer Prize) is about a school teacher in rural Illinois in the first half of the 19th Century.
"Cimarron" was made in to films in 1931, and a remake in 1960 which wasn't as successful. "Showboat" became much more famous as a musical play and film than as a novel. Since then you don't hear her name very often, so that might qualify her for the "aren't that widely known today" criteria you established.
OK I got one:
"Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant" was a huge best seller in 1885. Released over 2 volumes, published by Mark Twain and pushed out by an army of salesmen, sold at what was then a pretty high cost, it was gobbled up by veterans. Grant was dying of cancer and almost bankrupt when he wrote it but managed to complete it before he died. Extremely successful, as he intended it helped set up his family financially for their remaining lives.
No one pays attention to it now, only history geeks like us. I enjoyed it immensely when I read it about a decade ago.
Hmmm, well the concept of "bestsellers" has only existed for the last few hundred years since the development of the printing press and bookbinding. Before that books were only found in monastaries and with the rich. So I have a tough time qualifying an answer for you.
I mean are we talking Poe/Crane/Mark Twain 19th century novel territory (where books started reaching the masses) or 5th century BC Art of War Sun Tzu/written on bamboo slips and papyrus leaves stuff?
How about if we just say "widely read"?
Poe/Crane/Twain are obviously not what I'm looking for since they're still well known.
Ambrose Bierce kind of qualifies but he is still known by the more literary types.
Several medieval and ancient societies have book cultures and I don't think they were all reading just philosophies.
OK I got one:
"Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant" was a huge best seller in 1885. Released over 2 volumes, published by Mark Twain and pushed out by an army of salesmen, sold at what was then a pretty high cost, it was gobbled up by veterans. Grant was dying of cancer and almost bankrupt when he wrote it but managed to complete it before he died. Extremely successful, as he intended it helped set up his family financially for their remaining lives.
No one pays attention to it now, only history geeks like us. I enjoyed it immensely when I read it about a decade ago.
Thanks. This is the kind of answer I'm looking for.
OK I got one:
"Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant" was a huge best seller in 1885. Released over 2 volumes, published by Mark Twain and pushed out by an army of salesmen, sold at what was then a pretty high cost, it was gobbled up by veterans. Grant was dying of cancer and almost bankrupt when he wrote it but managed to complete it before he died. Extremely successful, as he intended it helped set up his family financially for their remaining lives.
No one pays attention to it now, only history geeks like us. I enjoyed it immensely when I read it about a decade ago.
I've been meaning to read it. I heard someone once say that Grant was by far the best writer of any of the presidents.
100 years ago, people could barely afford to eat let alone buy books. Before that, books were for the wealthy. Libraries, as we know them, didn't become widespread and available until the middle of the twentieth century.
That said you are probably asking about books that were widespread after the depression?
Then as now, popular books were made into movies that the people went to en masse.
Maybe what you are asking is about books that received widespread acclaim but didn't sell fantastically?
Something like The Andy Warhol Diaries or Edie?
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