Libraries of Fiction: The Cheap Class Reprint Series

They were advertised as “sustained literary ventures”—each was a series, primarily composed of fiction, classics and popular works, issued in installments, bound uniformly, sold inexpensively, and united by a general title. Their purpose was to entice the British public to buy its literature rather than borrow it from the circulating libraries. From 1830 to 1906 over 75 series were formed.

The immense success in 1829 of a reissue of Scott’s works titled “The Author’s Edition of the Waverly Novels,” began an era of cutthroat competition among the publishing houses to satisfy the growing reading population’s appetite both for improving literature and for light, entertaining fiction in a cheap, portable form. The quality of production and content of these series varied greatly. Some series offered proven standards, new fiction and discerning editors [Bentley’s Standard Novels and Newnes’ Penny Library] while most supplied corrupt or fragmentary texts, remaindered works, and inferior novels by literary hacks [Railway Library and Bohn’s Cheap].

Newnes’ Penny Library of Famous Books, 1896-1899

Sadleir praises Newnes for his selection of significant 19^th-century fiction well known in its time but nearly forgotten by the 1890s. He notes the absence of most of Austen and Marryat, and all of Trollope, Le Fanu, and Collins.