Books: North v. South

ACTION AT AQUILA—Hervey Allen—Farrar & Rinehart ($2.50).

Anthony Adverse was published June 26, 1933, with advance orders of 15,000 copies and the prestige of a Book-of-the-Month Club selection. It began to sell rapidly, sales reaching as high as 2,000 fat, 2¼-lb. copies a day. In that dark season of the book trade, when a novel that sold 5,000 copies could get on best-seller lists, Anthony Adverse became "the fastest selling book in American history," with sales reaching 235.000 copies in six months, 450,000 in one year. Author Hervey Allen bought a farm on...