ABSTRACT
Critics, publishers, and the general public use and understand the term “bestseller” in a number of varying and often contradictory ways. Bestsellers have existed for as long as books have been printed and distributed in an organized fashion, but, as students of literature learn quite early on, they are usually relegated to that dubious category of literature which critics most pejoratively label “popular.” A correlation also exists between the evolution of the reading public and the way in which the term “bestseller” and the object it represents have come to occupy such a disputed place in the world of letters. Bestseller lists are standard items in most American mass circulation publications and can be found in the weekly magazines like Time or Newsweek, campus newspapers, local Sunday editions, and women’s magazines. Women’s bestsellers resolve tensions resulting from the changing condition of women in a less threatening and less radical fashion than is the case in “real” life.
