Yellow-back

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

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]

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]

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

• Airport novel
• Sensation novel

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.

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