ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the texts as part of a communicative process, involving not only the books themselves, but also their authors, their audiences, and the institutional matrix within which they are published and distributed. It explores the ways in which popular literature is grounded in social life. The chapter also explores the interrelationships over time before contending that thematic changes in popular novels accord with changes in attitudes or beliefs within the audience for the novels. It also examines the publishing industry that marketed bestselling novels between 1945 and 1975, and then discusses what can be discovered about their audiences and authors. The bestseller lists show that a few large publishing companies had begun to dominate the market for hardcover bestselling novels in the years immediately after World War II. Few hardcover bestselling novels are packaged books even now, and more traditional literary and publishing careers exist side by side with the new Hollywood-New York media nexus.
