E. Haldeman-Julius
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E. Haldeman-Julius, né Emanuel Julius, born in Philadelphia, son of a Russian Jew bookbinder who had immigrated to America [1] (1889 - 1951) was a socialist (joining the Socialist Party before World War I[1]) reformer and publisher, most noted as the editor of Appeal to Reason newspaper (a socialist newspaper with a large national circulation that was mentioned, among other places, in the Jack London novel The Iron Heel), and later for publishing the Little Blue Books.
Along with his wife, Marcet (whose last name he adopted in hyphenate), Julius was an activist who published muckraking newspapers until he came upon the idea of publishing cheaply-printed classic literature for the masses. He opened a printing house in Girard, Kansas and printed these books on cheap pulp paper (similar to that used in pulp magazines), stapled and bound with a plain (usually) yellow paper cover. They were first sold in 1919 for as little as 5 cents. Many titles of classic literature were given lurid titles in order to increase sales. Eventually, many thousands of copies per year were sold and were popular with the so-called "drifters" of the 1920s to the 1950s. Haldeman-Julius and his wife became wealthy from the venture but later divorced.
E. Haldeman-Julius drowned in his swimming pool in 1951. The books continued to be sold from existing stock until the printing house burned down in 1978.
[edit] Further reading
- The World of Haldeman-Julius, Emanuel Haldeman-Julius, 1960, published in New York
[edit] References
- ^ a b pg 264 of Susan Jacoby's Freethinkers: a history of American secularism, 2004, ISBN-13: 978-0-8050-7776-6, ISBN 0-8050-7776-6. Published by Henry Holt and Company, LLC; cover design John Candell
