ABSTRACT
In sheer quantitative terms, the decade of 1929-1939 displayed remarkable resiliency. The number of titles remained quite stable, with declines in some years like 1933 but sharp inclines in 1935 and a leveling off at those higher production figures throughout. One of the great breakthrough elements of that period is the development of paperback publishing as a mass technique. While scholarly and university presses were slow to accept paperback publishing, fearing that it would cut into the review process at one end and revenues from expensive cloth editions at the other, it caught on nonetheless. While religious publishing institutions like Sheed & Ward were long involved in book titles that expressed strong clerical and ethical emphases, the emergence of radical groups on the right as well as left, were accompanied by the coming into existence of publishing houses dedicated to marginal political forces such as communists, socialists, and fascists.
