Introduction

This chapter argues that unearthing the histories of specific enterprises within this mode of publishing can yield significant insight into leading reader demographics’ print consumption and literary preferences. Laurel Brake has emphasised the alignment between the boom in publisher’s series in this era and the wider expansion in serial formats across nineteenth-century print culture. Inventories and the linguistic signifiers they contained could exercise a critical influence upon the carryover choices that readers might make as they set about identifying additional series works to acquire in the future. Literary works that had originally been published in other more deluxe and pricier book formats had traditionally been the most prevalent body of texts mined by publishers curating yellowback and paperback series aiming to find favour with railway passengers. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.