Pocket Books

Information about Pocket Books



Pocket Books is a division of Simon & Schuster which primarily publishes paperback books.

Pocket produced the first mass-market, pocket-sized paperback books in America in early 1939 and revolutionized the publishing industry. The German Albatross Books had pioneered the idea of a line of color-coded paperback editions in 1931 under Kurt Enoch; Penguin Books in England had refined the idea in 1935 and had one million books in print by the following year.

In 1944, the founding owners sold the company to Marshall Field III, owner of the Chicago Sun newspaper. Following his death, in 1957 Leon Shimkin, a Simon & Schuster partner, and James M. Jacobson bought Pocket Books.

Penguin's success inspired entrepreneur Robert de Graff, who partnered with publishers Simon & Schuster to bring it to the American market. Priced at 25 cents and featuring the logo of Gertrude the kangaroo (named after the artist's mother-in-law), Pocket Books' editorial policy of reprints of light literature, popular non-fiction and mysteries was coordinated with its strategy of selling books outside the traditional distribution channels. The format size, and the fact that the books were glued rather than stitched, were cost-cutting innovations.

The first ten Pocket Book titles include: The edition of Wuthering Heights hit the best-seller list, and by the end of the first year Pocket Books had sold more than 1.5 million units. Robert de Graff continued to refine his selections with movie tie-ins and greater emphasis on mystery novels, particularly those of Christie and Erle Stanley Gardner.

Pocket and its imitators thrived during World War II because material shortages worked to their advantage. During the war Pocket sued Avon Books for copyright infringement; among other issues, a New York state court found Pocket did not have an exclusive right to the pocket-sized format. (Both Pocket and Avon published paperback editions of Leslie Charteris's The Saint mystery series, among others.)

Pocket is still known for publishing works of popular fiction based on movies or TV series, such as the Star Trek franchise and formerly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The author credited for one of the Buffy products is "Gertrude Pocket", a reference to the company's kangaroo logo. (The Buffy novels are now published by Simon Spotlight Entertainment, another division of Simon & Schuster.) Since first obtaining the Star Trek licence from Bantam Books in 1980 (with a publication of the novelization of ), Pocket has published hundreds of original and adapted works based upon the franchise.

Imprints

  • Downtown Press - chick lit
  • G-Unit Books
  • MTV / VH1 Books
  • Pocket Star Books - media tie in
  • Threshold Editions - conservative titles
  • WWE Books
  • Timescape (defunct) - science fiction
  • Wanderer Books (defunct) - former publisher of The Hardy Boys stories.

External links

Simon & Schuster, Inc. is a publishing house founded in New York in 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln ("Max") Schuster. It is notable for its position as one of the four largest English-language publishers in the world (the "Big Four") alongside Random House, Penguin, and
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Paperback, softback, or softcover describe and refer to a book by the nature of its binding. The book covers of such books are without cloth or leather, and are bound, usually, with glue rather than stitches or staples.
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19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1900s  1910s  1920s  - 1930s -  1940s  1950s  1960s
1936 1937 1938 - 1939 - 1940 1941 1942

Year 1939 (MCMXXXIX
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Albatross Books was a German publishing house based in Hamburg that produced the first modern mass market paperback books.

Albatross was founded in 1932 by John Holyrod-Reece, Max Wegner and Kurt Enoch.
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19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1900s  1910s  1920s  - 1930s -  1940s  1950s  1960s
1928 1929 1930 - 1931 - 1932 1933 1934

Year 1931 (MCMXXXI
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Penguin Books is a British publisher founded in 1935 by Allen Lane. Lane's idea was to provide quality writing cheaply, for the same price as a pack of cigarettes. He also wanted them to be sold not only in bookshops but in railway stations, general stores and corner shops.
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19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1900s  1910s  1920s  - 1930s -  1940s  1950s  1960s
1932 1933 1934 - 1935 - 1936 1937 1938

Year 1935 (MCMXXXV
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The April 4, 2007 front page
of the Chicago Sun-Times
Type Daily newspaper
Format Tabloid

Owner Sun-Times Media Group
Publisher John D. Cruickshank
Editor Michael Cooke
Founded 1948
Price USD 0.50 (In the City) 0.
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Lost Horizon may refer to:
  • Lost Horizon (novel), the fantasy adventure novel by James Hilton
  • Lost Horizon (film), the 1937 film adaptation of the novel
  • Lost Horizon (1973 film), the 1973 remake of the 1937 film

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James Hilton
Born: September 9 1900(1900--)
Leigh, Lancashire, England
Died: November 20 1954 (aged 54)
Long Beach, California, U.S.
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William Shakespeare

The Chandos portrait, artist and authenticity unconfirmed. National Portrait Gallery, London.
Born: April 1564 (exact date unknown)
Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England
Died: 23 March 1616
Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England
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Jason Thorne Smith (March 27, 1892–June 21, 1934), was an American writer of humorous fantasy fiction.

Best known today for his creation of Topper, Smith's comic fantasy fiction (most of it involving sex, lots of drinking, and supernatural transformations, and aided by
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Agatha Christie

Born: 15 September 1890(1890--)
Torquay, Devon, England
Died: 12 January 1976 (aged 87)
Cholsey, Oxfordshire, England
Occupation: Novelist
Genres: Murder mystery, Crime fiction
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Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker
Born: July 22 1893(1893--)
Long Branch, New Jersey, U.S.
Died: May 7 1967 (aged 75)
New York, New York, U.S.
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Wuthering Heights

Title page of the first edition
Author Emily Brontë
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Genre(s) Novel
Publisher Thomas Cautley Newby
Publication date 1847
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Emily Jane Brontë

Portrait by her brother
Born: July 30 1818(1818--)
Thornton, Yorkshire, England
Died: November 19 1848 (aged 30)
Haworth, Yorkshire, England
Occupation: Novelist, Poet
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The Way of All Flesh may refer to:
  • The Way of All Flesh (novel), a novel by Samuel Butler
  • The Way of All Flesh (film), films from 1927 and 1940

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Samuel Butler

Born: November 4 1835(1835--)
Langar Rectory, England (near Bingham, Nottinghamshire)
Died: May 18 1902 (aged 68)

Occupation: Novelist, Writer
Nationality: English


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Thornton Wilder (April 17, 1897 – December 7, 1975) was an American playwright and novelist. [1]

Life

Family history

Thornton Niven Wilder was born in Madison, Wisconsin, and was the son of Amos Parker Wilder, a U.S.
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BMP and Activin membrane bound inhibitor (BAMBI), has a similar extracellular domain as type I receptors in the TGF beta signaling pathway. It lacks an intracellular serine/threonine protein kinase domain and hence is a pseudoreceptor.
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Erle Stanley Gardner (July 17, 1889 Malden, Massachusetts – March 11, 1970 Temecula, California) was an American lawyer and author of detective stories who also published under the pseudonyms A.A. Fair, Kyle Corning, Charles M.
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Allied powers:
 Soviet Union
 United States
 United Kingdom
 China
 France
...et al. Axis powers:
 Germany
 Japan
 Italy
...et al.
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Avon Publications was an American paperback book and comic book publisher. As of 2007, it exists as an imprint of HarperCollins, publishing primarily romance novels.[1]

History


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Leslie Charteris
Born: 1907-05-12

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The Saint Character

Name: Simon Templar
Job: Thief, amateur detective,
occasional police agent
Portrayed by: Louis Hayward, George Sanders,
Roger Moore, Ian Ogilvy, Val Kilmer, Vincent Price, others
Weapons: Ebony Stick
Fists
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Buffy novels have been published since 1998. Originally, under the Pocket Books imprint of Simon & Schuster they are now published by Simon Spotlight Entertainment which launched in 2004.
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Pocket Books is a division of Simon & Schuster which primarily publishes paperback books.

Pocket produced the first mass-market, pocket-sized paperback books in America in early 1939 and revolutionized the publishing industry.
..... Click the link for more information.
Simon & Schuster, Inc. is a publishing house founded in New York in 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln ("Max") Schuster. It is notable for its position as one of the four largest English-language publishers in the world (the "Big Four") alongside Random House, Penguin, and
..... Click the link for more information.

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