History of Text Technologies

Paperbacks emerged out of publishers' desires to reach a wider reading base. Small booklets bound in paper emerged in the 19th century alongside developments in printmaking technologies and pulp mills. The first mass-market paperback format for full-length books would emerge in the 1930s. In 1935, Allen Lane would begin the "paperback revolution," as it would come to be called, with the publishing of a series of paperback book reprints. This series was also the launch of Lane's publishing house: Penguin Books. Lane's vision of mass-produced paperbacks was considered risky at the time, but it quickly caught on - not just in Lane's home of England, but across the globe.

• Dime Novels
• Armed Services Editions
• Penny Dreadfuls

Dime novels were  American 19th- and 20th-century popular fiction books issued in series of inexpensive paperbound editions. "Dime novels" is the term that applies to several varieties of inexpensive popular fiction, including five- and ten-cent weeklies and also pulp magazines. 

Dime Novels Collection (MSS 2015-003): This collection contains dime novels from the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries. These were cheap, mass-market fiction works sold in five, ten, and twenty cent formats that covered themes of adventure, crime, technology, the American Revolution, pirates, frontier life, the Wild West, and relations with Native Americans. This collection contains issues from popular dime novel publishers, including Frank Tousey, the Winner Library Co., Streetand Smith, the George Marsh Company, Beadle and Adams, Norman L. Munro, the Arthur Westbrook Company, and R. M. de Witt. Because of their ephemeral nature, many dime novel publications have not survived. This collection offers a valuable look at American popular fiction from the turn of the twentieth century.

Armed Services editions were small paperback books (both fiction and nonfiction) that were distributed to the military during World War II. These books were intended to provide entertainment to soldiers. These books were small in size and able to fit into the cargo pocket of a soldier's uniform.

Penny dreadfuls were cheap popular literature published during the 19th century in the United Kingdom. The subject matter of these books was usually sensational and focused on adventures featuring detectives, criminals, or supernatural entities. Stories usually ranged from 8 to 16 pages and cost one penny.