Luxury goods dominated the advertising pages, particularly in the front of the book. of The New York Times Sunday magazine. Perfumes, cosmetics, expensive clothing, jewelry, watches, cocktail mixes, gourmet foods, wine, Parker pens and cigars were all represented, reflecting the tastes of the economic elite whom The New York Times targeted. Moderately priced clothing, particularly men’s clothing, was among the many items that were hard to find at this time but, judging from the ads, high-priced dresses and women’s suits were relatively available. Several pages at the back of the book were taken up by a catalog of summer camps and private schools. In mid-book, where the service articles dwelled, more quotidian products found space including Clorox, White Rose, Nestles evaporated milk, Valencia oranges from Florida, General Mills cereal, cocoa, bottled chicken and gravy, and instant coffee. Harte & Co, Inc. took a full page trumpeting its “Wataseal Plastic,” available in kitchen and shower curtains, raincoats, aprons, baby pants, pillow covers, food covers, kitchen shelving and closet accessories from many manufacturers as well as by the yard at Macy’s and other prominent stores.
Pocket Books advertised its line of mystery paperbacks, which included works by most of the big American and British names of the genre. Most of the titles were a decade or more old. Paperbacks, as we know them, had been introduced in the late 1930s and quickly had become popular, helped along by the military’s decision to provide novels and other reading materials in paperback form to servicemen during the war. Crime stories and mysteries were of perfect length for the 25 cent format. Mysteries seldom appeared on the hardcover best seller lists as they do today. According to Time of January 28, 1946, they almost never sold more than 20,000 copies. However, they long had been a mainstay of the city’s many private lending libraries, at the Womrath chain and in neighborhood drug and candy stores. The lending library, along with pulp magazines specializing in crime and romance, became the chief victims of the paperback revolution. Top mystery titles sold over 1,000,000 copies in paperback at that time, according to Time, but the hardcover publishers kept half the royalties.
Among the writers represented in the Pocket Book ad were the British queens of the genre: Marjorie Allingham, Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers as well as New Zealand born Ngaio Marsh. American masters such as Erle Stanley Gardner, Ellery Queen, Dashiell Hammett, Cornell Woolrich (under his own name as well as his pen name William Irish) also are represented. Craig Rice, the penname of Georgiana Ann Randolph Walker Craig, praised as the Dorothy Parker of crime novelists, who was on the cover of the Time magazine January 28 issue, is represented by one of the newer titles, Having a Wonderful Crime, published in hardcover in 1943. British spy writer Eric Ambler, a Philo Vance novel by S.S. Van Dine, a Charlie Chan from Earl Derr Biggers , a wartime mystery from Carter Dickson (aka John Dickson Carr) and a thriller from British writer Philip MacDonald, who was turning out screenplays in Hollywood in 1946, rounded out the list.