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Bestsellers: Popular Fiction since 1900
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320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 23, 2014
In many respects this is an excellent book and I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in the history of publishing, reading tastes, and the emergence of 'the bestseller' in the twentieth century. Happily for me, Bloom chooses some of my favourite authors (P.G. Wodehouse, George MacDonald Fraser, John Buchan, Agatha Christie) to illustrate his points.
Bloom tracks the development of 'the bestseller' alongside increasing literacy levels in Britain, showing how new literature classifications emerged (high-brow and low-brow) that kept class distinctions alive once reading became a pass-time open to the newly literate working classes. In doing so, Bloom exposes 'literary fiction' as (arguably) little more than snobbery - a small body of 'serious literature' so unfathomable and dire to the general public that it remains the province of an expensively-educated elite. As Bloom says:
"No use of literary language can claim, ab initio, an aesthetic principle that is superior per se and no such claim can avoid the acrid whiff of moral, class and personal superiority. What emerges is a test of psychic health and moral eugenics rather than literary judgement. What is left is condemnation dressed as artistic judgement, and in each condemnation the unwashed smell of the popular creeps through."
This is top stuff!
It's surprising how 'class distinction' still pervades British life. Almost everything one does in Britain - where you shop, what you wear, eat and drink, how you speak, the paper you read - mark you out for approval or condemnation. I was fascinated to understand how class distinctions have also influenced literature classification and genre. This was a freeing revelation for me as a reader. Having spent my life happily ignoring pressures to conform, understanding that literary snobbery is rooted in class snobbery adds to my pleasure in snubbing predictably pretentious 'must read lists'. I also feel guilty for having looked down on romance fiction and 'chick-lit'. Bloom shows (whether he intended to or not) that disparaging these genres is really disparaging working and middle-class women. I shall do this no more!
The other revelation that occurred to me while reading Bestsellers stemmed from Bloom's discussion of genre. As an unpublished writer, the matter of genre has troubled me. Writing courses and books for 'beginning' writers often proclaim the importance of knowing your genre (or 'market') before you write. This has been a significant problem for me - I've been scribbling to myself for almost 40 years without finding my elusive genre fit. Having read Bestsellers I better understand how changeable ideas about genre are (over time). I feel less pressured to contrive something to fit within current conventional genres, and freer to write the stories as I envisage them.
As you can see, I found Clive Bloom's Bestsellers well worth reading and reflecting on, but there was one significant fly in the ointment that must be commented on. In the second half of the book, Bloom lists the best-selling authors of the twentieth century and offers a precis of their life and work. In his discussion of the author P.G. Wodehouse, Bloom states that Wodehouse 'broadcast for the Nazis', but after a time 'the public seemed to accept him' again. This entry does great disservice to Wodehouse - and is no credit to Bloom.
A wealth of material has been written on the subject of Wodehouse's wartime broadcasts, particularly since the relevant war office archives were released. Repeated researchers have found (as did MI5) that Wodehouse was not a Nazi sympathiser or collaborator. Wodehouse spent part of the war in a German prison camp and, after his release, was approached to record five humorous broadcasts to America. There was nothing pro-German in the content of the broadcasts, which gently mocked the Nazis in the same comic style for which Wodehouse was usually so admired. The broadcasts were utterly in keeping with a British tradition for humour in the face of adversity, exemplified during the previous war by The Wipers Times (which was well received in Britain).
Few people in Britain heard the broadcasts. The denunciation of Wodehouse that followed was an orchestrated response, led by expert propagandists at the Daily Mirror, and accepted by a paranoid wartime public as factual. In truth, Wodehouse's anti-fascist credentials were much better than the Daily Mirror's. He famously lampooned the British fascist leader Oswald Mosley in the character of Roderick Spode (The Code of the Woosters, 1938), a ridiculous bully, amateur dictator and leader of the 'black shorts':
"The trouble with you, Spode, is that just because you have succeeded in inducing a handful of half-wits to disfigure the London scene by going about in black shorts, you think you’re someone. You hear them shouting “Heil, Spode!” and you imagine it is the Voice of the People. That is where you make your bloomer. What the Voice of the People is saying is: “Look at that frightful ass Spode swanking about in footer bags! Did you ever in your puff see such a perfect perisher?"
Wodehouse's anti-fascist credentials stand up to scrutiny far better than the newspaper responsible for denouncing him; The Daily Mirror had been emphatically pro-fascist under Lord Rothermere (who counted Hitler and Mussolini as personal friends). The Rothermeres could hardly write columns of scathing bile about themselves.
When Wodehouse made the broadcasts, he had just been released from internment, where he had been isolated from the events of the war. Much had changed during that time - including the public mood in Britain. He had no cause to suspect that a gently amusing, stiff-upper-lip account of his capture and imprisonment would be received so badly. Wodehouse intended no harm in broadcasting, and no harm was caused - apart from the lasting damage to his own reputation.
Under these circumstances it has been easy for Wodehouse readers to not only forgive (as Bloom indicates), but to also feel aggrieved every time we find examples which perpetuate mistaken beliefs that Wodehouse was in any way connected with Nazis or their ideology. It was disappointing to find in Bloom's otherwise excellent book. I have knocked off a 'star' accordingly.
Otherwise, Bestsellers is a fine book.
For more on Wodehouse's wartime broadcasts, try Ian Sproat's (1981) 'Wodehouse at War' and Robert McCrum's (2004) Wodehouse: A Life. You can also read the fulltext of the broadcasts online.
Bloom tracks the development of 'the bestseller' alongside increasing literacy levels in Britain, showing how new literature classifications emerged (high-brow and low-brow) that kept class distinctions alive once reading became a pass-time open to the newly literate working classes. In doing so, Bloom exposes 'literary fiction' as (arguably) little more than snobbery - a small body of 'serious literature' so unfathomable and dire to the general public that it remains the province of an expensively-educated elite. As Bloom says:
"No use of literary language can claim, ab initio, an aesthetic principle that is superior per se and no such claim can avoid the acrid whiff of moral, class and personal superiority. What emerges is a test of psychic health and moral eugenics rather than literary judgement. What is left is condemnation dressed as artistic judgement, and in each condemnation the unwashed smell of the popular creeps through."
This is top stuff!
It's surprising how 'class distinction' still pervades British life. Almost everything one does in Britain - where you shop, what you wear, eat and drink, how you speak, the paper you read - mark you out for approval or condemnation. I was fascinated to understand how class distinctions have also influenced literature classification and genre. This was a freeing revelation for me as a reader. Having spent my life happily ignoring pressures to conform, understanding that literary snobbery is rooted in class snobbery adds to my pleasure in snubbing predictably pretentious 'must read lists'. I also feel guilty for having looked down on romance fiction and 'chick-lit'. Bloom shows (whether he intended to or not) that disparaging these genres is really disparaging working and middle-class women. I shall do this no more!
The other revelation that occurred to me while reading Bestsellers stemmed from Bloom's discussion of genre. As an unpublished writer, the matter of genre has troubled me. Writing courses and books for 'beginning' writers often proclaim the importance of knowing your genre (or 'market') before you write. This has been a significant problem for me - I've been scribbling to myself for almost 40 years without finding my elusive genre fit. Having read Bestsellers I better understand how changeable ideas about genre are (over time). I feel less pressured to contrive something to fit within current conventional genres, and freer to write the stories as I envisage them.
As you can see, I found Clive Bloom's Bestsellers well worth reading and reflecting on, but there was one significant fly in the ointment that must be commented on. In the second half of the book, Bloom lists the best-selling authors of the twentieth century and offers a precis of their life and work. In his discussion of the author P.G. Wodehouse, Bloom states that Wodehouse 'broadcast for the Nazis', but after a time 'the public seemed to accept him' again. This entry does great disservice to Wodehouse - and is no credit to Bloom.
A wealth of material has been written on the subject of Wodehouse's wartime broadcasts, particularly since the relevant war office archives were released. Repeated researchers have found (as did MI5) that Wodehouse was not a Nazi sympathiser or collaborator. Wodehouse spent part of the war in a German prison camp and, after his release, was approached to record five humorous broadcasts to America. There was nothing pro-German in the content of the broadcasts, which gently mocked the Nazis in the same comic style for which Wodehouse was usually so admired. The broadcasts were utterly in keeping with a British tradition for humour in the face of adversity, exemplified during the previous war by The Wipers Times (which was well received in Britain).
Few people in Britain heard the broadcasts. The denunciation of Wodehouse that followed was an orchestrated response, led by expert propagandists at the Daily Mirror, and accepted by a paranoid wartime public as factual. In truth, Wodehouse's anti-fascist credentials were much better than the Daily Mirror's. He famously lampooned the British fascist leader Oswald Mosley in the character of Roderick Spode (The Code of the Woosters, 1938), a ridiculous bully, amateur dictator and leader of the 'black shorts':
"The trouble with you, Spode, is that just because you have succeeded in inducing a handful of half-wits to disfigure the London scene by going about in black shorts, you think you’re someone. You hear them shouting “Heil, Spode!” and you imagine it is the Voice of the People. That is where you make your bloomer. What the Voice of the People is saying is: “Look at that frightful ass Spode swanking about in footer bags! Did you ever in your puff see such a perfect perisher?"
Wodehouse's anti-fascist credentials stand up to scrutiny far better than the newspaper responsible for denouncing him; The Daily Mirror had been emphatically pro-fascist under Lord Rothermere (who counted Hitler and Mussolini as personal friends). The Rothermeres could hardly write columns of scathing bile about themselves.
When Wodehouse made the broadcasts, he had just been released from internment, where he had been isolated from the events of the war. Much had changed during that time - including the public mood in Britain. He had no cause to suspect that a gently amusing, stiff-upper-lip account of his capture and imprisonment would be received so badly. Wodehouse intended no harm in broadcasting, and no harm was caused - apart from the lasting damage to his own reputation.
Under these circumstances it has been easy for Wodehouse readers to not only forgive (as Bloom indicates), but to also feel aggrieved every time we find examples which perpetuate mistaken beliefs that Wodehouse was in any way connected with Nazis or their ideology. It was disappointing to find in Bloom's otherwise excellent book. I have knocked off a 'star' accordingly.
Otherwise, Bestsellers is a fine book.
For more on Wodehouse's wartime broadcasts, try Ian Sproat's (1981) 'Wodehouse at War' and Robert McCrum's (2004) Wodehouse: A Life. You can also read the fulltext of the broadcasts online.
January 8, 2026
The first half of this book has some useful information on the publishing industry and how the bestseller is made. I was interested in different elements in the publishing industry that contributed to the bestseller, not just the writing but things like formatting and how the book was sold, and changes in reading preferences.
Bloom is careful to explain the study's parameters and how certain sorts of books (nonfiction, children's books, authors outside particular time periods) were excluded. He also explains that he had some difficulty choosing where to draw the line in some cases because some books, like children's books, are bought by and enjoyed by both children and adults.
I found a lot of the information useful.
However in the other part of the book, there are several sections where there are lists of bestselling authors. I thought these sections where not done nearly as well as the parts discussing what made a bestseller. While none of the book is really that exciting a read, the lists are quite dry. They are uneven in what is contained in different sections about different authors. While I appreciate that there is not always the same amount or type of information on every author, the lists gave the impression that the author did not care very much to analyse or put in effort about some quite prominent authors.
All over, I didn't feel that the authors either came to life much in these sections (ie a great story section) nor was it a great basic reference/data source. The book felt more like an article that had some very useful information that had been expanded into a book; but I would have preferred the article.
Bloom is careful to explain the study's parameters and how certain sorts of books (nonfiction, children's books, authors outside particular time periods) were excluded. He also explains that he had some difficulty choosing where to draw the line in some cases because some books, like children's books, are bought by and enjoyed by both children and adults.
I found a lot of the information useful.
However in the other part of the book, there are several sections where there are lists of bestselling authors. I thought these sections where not done nearly as well as the parts discussing what made a bestseller. While none of the book is really that exciting a read, the lists are quite dry. They are uneven in what is contained in different sections about different authors. While I appreciate that there is not always the same amount or type of information on every author, the lists gave the impression that the author did not care very much to analyse or put in effort about some quite prominent authors.
All over, I didn't feel that the authors either came to life much in these sections (ie a great story section) nor was it a great basic reference/data source. The book felt more like an article that had some very useful information that had been expanded into a book; but I would have preferred the article.
April 8, 2023
Read 3rd edition. Not sure how it got through the editing stage without people picking up on the numerous typos and factual mistakes.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews