Nineteen forty-three was the most remarkable in the 150-year-old history of U.S. publishing. It was the year when U.S. readers:
>Bought 80,000,000 novels, biographies, and books about war and politics, 70,000,000 textbooks, 40,000,000 children's books, 45,000,000 technical books, 15,000,000 Bibles and religious booksa total estimated at between 250,000,000 and 350,000,000, and from 20% to 30% more than in 1942.
>Swamped the small, clannish, secretive book industry, with its 274 firms and 4,000 highly organized, well-informed employes. Said Random House's President Bennett Cerf: "It's unbelievable. It's frightening." Pocket Books, which at 25¢ apiece sold...
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