E. Haldeman-Julius and the Little Blue Bookworms: The Bridging of Cultural Styles, 1919–1951

Compared with the editions of more reputable publishers of the 1920s and 1930s, the Little Blue Books of Emanuel Haldeman-Julius do not look much like books. Small, cheaply printed, held together with two staples and blue cardboard covers, standardized to the point that readers were expected to order them by number from an agate-type list of thousands of titles, they were in great danger of being mistaken for pamphlets or worse. “Some of the volumes sent to me are so clumsily trimmed that the type lines run uphill,” complained H.L. Mencken in reviewing the earliest Little Blue Books in 1922. “Some begin in 8-point type and end in 10-point or 12-point; other reverse the process. In the anthologies different faces of type appear in successive captions. Everywhere there is villainous proof-reading and incompetent make-up.”