The Man Who Invented the Science Fiction Paperback

HughPickens.com (3830033) writes "Clay Latimer writes at IBD that Ian Ballantine, called by many the father of the mass-market paperback, helped change American reading habits in the 1940s and '50s founding no fewer than three prestigious paperback houses — Penguin USA, Bantam Books and Ballantine Books. But Ballantine's greatest influence on mass culture was publishing science-fiction paperback originals, with writers including Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick, Theodore Sturgeon, and Frederik Pohl and publishing the first authorized paperback editions of J.R.R. Tolkien's books. "These were great classics of world fiction," says Loren Glass. "He published in original form some of the greatest works in the golden age of science fiction. One of the interesting things about Ballantine is that he was not only a businessman trying to make money in books; he was a student of literature and publishing, and something of an intellectual."

Turning serious science fiction into a literary genre ranks among Ballantine's greatest feats. Prior to Ballantine Books, science fiction barely existed in novel form. He changed that with the 1953 publication of "Fahrenheit 451," the firm's 41st book. "That was obviously a key moment in the history of science-fiction publishing," Glass says. In 1965, when Tolkien's rights to his "Lord of the Rings" trilogy lapsed, Ace Books published his books without paying royalties and Tolkien responded by conducting a personal campaign against Ace. Tolkien began to urge the fans who wrote to him to inform them that the American copies were pirated: "I am now inserting in every note of acknowledgement to readers in the U.S.A. a brief note informing them that Ace Books is a pirate, and asking them to inform others." Ballantine quickly bought the rights and included Tolkien's back-cover note: "Those who approve of courtesy (at least) to living authors will purchase it and no other.""

Comments

"...will purchase it and no other"

[Zontar The Mindless]

I have been wondering what was behind that note for about 40 years. Thanks for the background on that.

Re:"...will purchase it and no other"

[rmdingler]

To be fair, the author's message appeared in those paperback novels when the internet was still science fiction.

IMHO, much of Slashdot's appeal is being exposed to interesting information I wouldn't see otherwise.

Re:"...will purchase it and no other"

[Zontar The Mindless]

Were you even born yet when those paperbacks came out? I was 13 or 14, old enough to buy them with money from my paper route (remember those?) and read them.

If I had thought of it (recently) before reading this story, I would have looked it up. But I've wondered about lots of things for periods measured in years, just not all of them concurrently and continuously.

Re:"...will purchase it and no other"

[Paradise Pete]

Not when he first started wondering about it. And I'm sure he hasn't been wondering about it constantly. Pre-internet, that sort of thing happened all the time. The usual answer was something like "I'll ask Uncle Joe next time I see him. He knows things like that."

Re:"...will purchase it and no other"

[demonlapin]

Pre-internet, that sort of thing happened all the time.

I think this is probably the hardest thing for post-internet people to understand. If you saw or heard someone make a reference to a literary work and didn't recognize it yourself (but could still tell it was referencing something), you had to track down someone who knew where to look. Reference desks at libraries basically existed to fulfill this function.

Re:"...will purchase it and no other"

[DutchUncle]

My 3-book Ballantine Books edition of LOTR sits on the shelf to my left. When I purchased it in 1970 or so and read that note on the back, there were barely computers as we know them today, let alone BBSes or the Net, or any kind of index. A few years later, the college science fiction club I co-founded circulated MIMEOGRAPHED COPIES of our sporadically-published newsletter with other clubs. (For those who never heard of mimeograph . . . use Google. For those who remember the intoxicating smell of mimeograph fluid, well, no explanation necessary.) Yes, children, there *was* a world before the Internet. And you.

Re:...and single-handedly responsible

[Zontar The Mindless]

In other words, not only have you no dreams, you don't want anyone else to have any, either.

Not the case. Copyright was valid.

[denzacar]

Ace Books DID pirate LotR books.

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/...

In 1993, a court found that the reasoning which the publishing house used to produce their own editions was flawed: where they reasoned that the lapse of a copyright renewal indicated that it was a de facto forfeiture of rights, the court disagreed. The opinion noted that provisions within a 1909 copyright law did protect the rights of the original copyright holder: While " 'forfeitures are never to be inferred from doubtful language.' Washingtonian Publishing Co. v. Pearson, 306 U.S. 30, 42, 59 S.Ct. 397, 403, 83 L.Ed. 470 (1938), this rule need not be relied upon: the 1909 Copyright Act makes no provision anywhere for forfeiture of copyrights of aliens because of distribution of their works without a copyright notice."

Which does not mean that Tolkein was not a dick and a two-faced bigoted stuck-up asshole.

Tolkien was not interested in seeing his books in paperback form: "When he called up Professor Tolkien in 1964 and asked if he could publish Lord of the Rings as Ace paperbacks, Tolkien said he would never allow his great works to appear in so 'degenerate a form' as the paperback book."
...
It's interesting to see that Tolkien utilized the fanbase that he so abhorred to fight back against the unauthorized editions. He was also correct: The incredible publicity that the row received, which pulled in efforts from the Science Fiction Writers of America, helped to grow the fervent readership for the tales from Middle Earth. It's also ironic that while Tolkien had resisted so " 'degenerate a form' as the paperback book," it was in that format which they first appeared and grew in popularity within the United States.

Re:...and single-handedly responsible

[Immerman]

>No, the point is that we have EVOLVED to live on Earth. We cannot fly either, planes can fly and we can fly in them.
That is the point, is it not? We did not evolve to fly, but we have built machines that make it possible for us to fly within them. Similarly we did not evolve to live on Mars, but it seems like a very tractable problem to build machines there that we can live within. Might not be to most people's tastes, but we've got plenty of shut-ins on Earth, and most city dwellers have very little idea what Earth is actually like anyway.

Radiation is easy to protect against - live under a couple yards of dirt on Mars and you'll get less radiation exposure than you do on Earth's surface.

As for gravity - you might be right, but at present we have no evidence whatsoever to suggest that lower gravity will cause any major problems. We know *micorgravity* causes all manner of problems, but that is a very different thing. One of the biggest identified problems being that in microgravity your skeleton isn't subjected to the regular shockwaves created by walking, which are apparently necessary to its long-term health - and it appears that ultrasonic stimulation may mostly alleviate the problem, and even that probably won't be necessary if you're actually walking around on Mars - if the shockwaves are insufficient, just wear less padded shoes. After that you've got muscle atrophy - which isn't actually that much of a problem unless you plan to return to Earth. And then some complications associated with fluid distribution, that generally aren't any worse than prolonged bed rest, and would almost certainly be at least a much milder issue in a half-gravity field.

There are very real difficulties to be faced as people begin to move off-planet, but to date we haven't discovered anything that would be prohibitive. We may discover such issues as we actually make the attempt, but "we might not succeed" is a piss-poor excuse not to attempt something, if we have he ambition to do so.

retcon much?

[fermion]

A lot of this had to do with WWII and advancements in technology. WWII produced an increased literate adults who in turn produced children who read. It also lead to a shift in the demographics of readers, namely more men read, which lead to their sons reading. In the 1940's this was mostly lead by magazines who published short stories, novella, or series of science fiction written by most of the names we know from the classic period of science fiction.

One of these authors that was writing before 1950 was Robert Heinlein who first published in 1947 and had established serious science fiction by the mid 1950's.

What lead to the popularization of science fiction, arguably, was the technological innovation in print. That is, printing paperbacks was cheap enough so that even if very few books sold, it was still possible to at least break even. The advent of the paper back is like the advent of direct to video movie. Lower risk, more titles, profits are driven by the few that sell well, the rest are pulped.

So this is what those publishing houses invented. Pulp Fiction.

Re:retcon much?

[Solandri]

The granddaddy of science fiction was H.G. Wells, who published fiction from 1895-1941. My hunch is the primary impetus for science fiction was the industrial revolution. Prior to it, the rate of technological progress was slow enough that very little changed throughout your lifetime. Without visible advancement, there was little reason to speculate on what the future might bring. But once the rate of advancement took off, actual development began to outstrip people's imagination, which challenged their imagination to become more speculative.

Re:retcon much?

[DerekLyons]

One of these authors that was writing before 1950 was Robert Heinlein who first published in 1947

Robert Heinlein was first published in 1939.

And frankly, the rest of your thesis is equally off base. SF and SF magazine were already well established by the beginning of the war. And you're wrong about the "pulps" - those predate WWII as well. And... well you spelled Heinlein's name correctly, so kudos for that.

In the same vein Ballantine didn't invent paperback books (those were invented in the 1850's) or paperback SF. At best he made them available to a wider audience.