{"product_id":"the-worlds-best-books-taste-culture-and-the-modern-library-9781558497917","title":"The World's Best Books: Taste, Culture, and the Modern Library","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn October 1930, Macy's department store in New York City used the inexpensive book series \"The Modern Library of the World's Best Books\" as a loss-leader to draw customers into the store. Selling for only nine cents a copy, the small-format, modern classics attracted crowds of buyers. Businessmen, housewives, students, bohemian intellectuals, and others waited in long lines to purchase affordable hard-bound copies of works by the likes of Tolstoy, Wilde, Joyce, and Woolf. It was a significant moment in American cultural history, demonstrating that a series of books respected and praised by the nation's self-appointed arbiters of taste could attract a throng of middle-class consumers without damaging its reputation as a vehicle of \"serious culture.\" \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe Modern Library's reputation stands in sharp contrast to that of similar publishing ventures dismissed by critics as agents of \"middlebrow culture,\" such as the Book of-the-Month Club. Writers for the \u003ci\u003eNew Republic, \u003c\/i\u003e the \u003ci\u003eNation\u003c\/i\u003e, and the \u003ci\u003eBookman\u003c\/i\u003e expressed their fears that mass-production and new distribution schemes would commodify literature and deny the promise of American culture. Yet although the Modern Library offered the public a uniformly packaged, preselected set of \"the World's Best Books,\" it earned the praise of these self-consciously intellectual critics. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eFocusing on the Modern Library's marketing strategies, editorial decisions, and close attention to book design, Jay Satterfield explores the interwar cultural dynamics that allowed the publisher of the series to exploit the forces of mass production and treat books as commodities while still positioning the series as a revered cultural entity. So successful was this approach that the modern publishing colossus Random House was built on the reputation, methods, and profits of the Modern Library.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Jay Satterfield\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Massachusetts Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 12\/20\/2010\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSeries:\u003c\/b\u003e Studies in Print Culture and the History of the Book\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 256\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.83lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.58d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781558497917","brand":"University of Massachusetts Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45398248390793,"sku":"9781558497917","price":34.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0636\/9240\/6921\/files\/img_020e477a-82f4-4d02-a7c6-fa4c7a605f02.jpg?v=1773728460","url":"https:\/\/sonsanddaughtersbooks.com\/products\/the-worlds-best-books-taste-culture-and-the-modern-library-9781558497917","provider":"Sons and Daughters Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}