Yellow-back

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.[1]

Cover of The Jealous Wife (1865) by Julia Pardoe, part of the Yellowbacks Collection in the Internet Archive
Cover of Cora: Or, The Romance of Three Years (1869) by Gertrude Fenton

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.[2][3] 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.[4]

Two typical examples of authors of yellow-backs include James Grant and Robert Louis Stevenson.[5]

See also

References
  1. "Introduction · Yellowbacks". omeka.philaathenaeum.org. Retrieved 2016-01-18.
  2. Flanders, Judith (2006-08-20). "Hooked on books". The Sunday Telegraph. London. Retrieved 2015-04-10.
  3. Routledge's Railway Library (George Routledge) - Book Series List, publishinghistory.com. Retrieved 17 January 2021.
  4. "Books: The Yellowbacks", Time, 10 July 1950. Retrieved 17 January 2021.
  5. 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.

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.
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