A yellow-back or yellowback is a cheap novel which was published in Britain in the second half of the 19th century. They were occasionally called "mustard-plaster" novels.
Developed in the 1840s to compete with the "penny dreadful", yellow-backs were marketed as entertaining reading. They had brightly coloured covers, often printed by chromoxylography, that were attractive to a new class of readers, thanks to the spread of education and rail travel.
Routledge was one of the first publishers to begin marketing yellow-backs by starting their "Railway Library" in 1848. The series included 1,277 titles, published over 50 years. These mainly consisted of stereotyped reprints of novels originally published as cloth editions. By the late 19th century, yellow-backs included sensational fiction, adventure stories, "educational" manuals, handbooks, and cheap biographies.
Two typical examples of authors of yellow-backs include James Grant and Robert Louis Stevenson.
The color yellow is similarly associated with fast-paced crime thrillers in Italy, where the word for "crime story" is giallo even nowadays.
See also
- Novels portal
Further reading
- Michael Sadleir, Collecting "Yellowbacks", London: Constable, 1938 (Aspects of Book-Collecting series).
- Michael Sadleir, XIX Century Fiction. A Bibliographical Record based on his own Collection, Constable & Co. and University of California Press, 1951; reprinted by Cooper Square Publishers, New York, 1969. 2 volumes. Vol. II lists Sadleir's personal "Yellow Back Collection".
- Chester W. Topp, Victorian Yellowbacks & Paperbacks, 1849-1905, Denver, Colorado: Hermitage Antiquarian Bookshop, 1993, 9 volumes, as follows: Vol. 1. George Routledge; Vol. 2. Ward & Lock; Vol. 3. Hotten, Chatto & Windus; Vol. 4. Frederick Warne & Co., Sampson Low & Co.; Vol. 5. MacMillan & Co., Smith, Elder & Co.; Vol. 6. Longmans, Green & Co.; Vol. 7. F.V. White & Co. Cassell & Co., W. Blackwood & Sons, Vizetelly & Co.; Vol. 8. Simpkin, Marshall & Co., J.W. Arrowsmith, R. Bentley, Ward & Downey, J. Blackwood; Vol. 9. David Bryce, Ingram, Cooke & Co., David Bogue, Henry Lea, Swan Sonnenschein & Co., J & C. Brown & Co.
- Robert Lee Wolff, Nineteenth-Century Fiction: A Bibliographical Catalogue based on the Collection formed by Robert Lee Wolff. Vol. 5 vols. New York: Garland Publications. 1981–1986. Yellowbacks occupy a prominent position in this catalogue.
External links
- Digital collection of Yellowback covers UCLA
- Yellowbacks at Emory, Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University - digitalized yellowbacks available for download
- Guide to the Yellowback Press collection, 1981-1995 at University of South Florida Libraries
- Yellowbacks Collection at the Internet Archive
- Yellowbacks: Don’t Judge These Victorian Books by Their Covers, Antheneaum of Philadelphia
- Aspects of the Victorian book: Yellowbacks, at British Library
- Now that's a novel idea at BBC
- Yellowbacks : an exhibition, at Monash University Library - also: Exhibition catalogue
- Recent acquisitions - Rare Books at National Library of Scotland
References
"Introduction · Yellowbacks". omeka.philaathenaeum.org. Retrieved 2016-01-18. http://omeka.philaathenaeum.org/yellowbacks/introduction ↩
Flanders, Judith (2006-08-20). "Hooked on books". The Sunday Telegraph. London. Retrieved 2015-04-10. /wiki/Judith_Flanders ↩
Routledge's Railway Library (George Routledge) - Book Series List, publishinghistory.com. Retrieved 17 January 2021. https://www.publishinghistory.com/routledges-railway-library.html ↩
"Books: The Yellowbacks", Time, 10 July 1950. Retrieved 17 January 2021. https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,805526,00.html ↩
Jackson, Holbrook (1914). The eighteen nineties; a review of art and ideas at the close of the nineteenth century. London: New York, Kennerley. p. 44. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.32000006889283;view=1up;seq=14 ↩