The Press: Backward Glance

The good, grey, elephantine New York Sunday Times celebrated a partial anniversary: the Book Review section was 50 years old.

Now middle-aged and fat with advertising, the Book Review paid tribute to the best-sellers which made it prosperous. In its listing of the two most popular books published in each of the last 50 years, oldsters might recognize some titles with twinges of nostalgia, and youngsters would still find a few on school reading lists. Movie versions had kept, others half alive. Sample titles (from the first four decades):

1896—Frances Hodgson Burnett's A Lady of Quality; 1899—Edward Noyes Westcott's David Harum, Charles...