How long have paperbacks been with us? There was a great surge in Britain in the Thirties when Penguin was launched, and since then, many other firms have been converted. Now it's common to bring out a hardback and a paper back version of a new book at the same time. Certainly, in the last century and even before, many books published in Ireland were in paper back form. Often in a dull brown colour. But paper backs in the English language (the French have always been partial to a soft cover), were big business long before Penguin and the followers.
English speaking holiday makers on the continent could discover a huge range of their literature in paperback. George Birmingham to George Bernard Shaw; J. B. Priestley, Hilaire Belloc, Oscar Wilde. And it was on a big scale. Aldous Huxley's Music at Night, essays, was volume number 5017 in the Tauchnitz series of British and American authors. All black and white. But a brighter and less spartan cover appeared in a rival firm. Victoria of England by Edith Sitweil had a more showy Nover, pink with neat ruled borders. This was in the Albatross Modern Continental Library, produced by the firm of the same name in Hamburg, though the title page gave it as based on Hamburg, Paris and Bologna.
Just when these started is not known here, but it was such a regular business that Tauchnitz, in the Huxley book mentioned, announced on its inside and back covers their latest volumes November 1931, including twenty one titles.
Both Tauchnitz and Albatross marked clearly on the front covers: "Not to be introduced into the British Empire and the USA."
Did they die in 1939 at the beginning of the Second World War? Or were they already dead? Or what? Certainly, the survival of so many paperbackbound books in libraries, mostly private, show that the French were wise all along. And a volume including Hyde's The Necessity fir DeAnglicising Ireland, published in paperback by Fisher Unwin seems to be about a century old. Long live the paperback.