100 Years Ago: Book of the Month Club
Today in 1926, the inaugural pick from the Book of the Month club was mailed out to its founding subscribers
When was middlebrow culture invented? Try this theory on for size: 100 years ago today, when the Book of the Month club mailed out a proto-feminist witch novel as its inaugural selection.
Founded in 1926 by New York ad men, the Book of the Month was an early machine for mass-producing literary taste. Its first pick, Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner, was hardly the safest possible choice. Sly and subversive, the debut novel depicts a woman who rejects domestic life and becomes a witch.
That first selection went out to 4,750 founding members. By the end of the year, the club had grown to 60,000. It quickly became an engine for churning literature into middle-class consensus, helping turn books into events. In 1936, the club selected Gone with the Wind by then-unknown Margaret Mitchell. In 1937 came Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. In 1940, Richard Wright’s Native Son became the first selection by a Black author. In 1951, the club distributed its 100 millionth book and selected J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye.
Today, as celebrities have encroached, the book club has practically become its own genre. Oprah and Reese are the obvious touchstones, but a pageant of notables have created their own clubs: Dua Lipa, Dakota Johnson, Florence Welch, Emma Roberts, Kaia Gerber, and Andrew Luck.
What the Book of the Month figured out in 1926 still powers the form today: A book club is never just about reading. It is about borrowed taste.
MORE ANNIVERSARIES
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30 Years Ago Today: Local H released the album As Good as Dead (1996), featuring the single “Bound for the Floor,” also known as “the copacetic song.”
60 Years Ago Today: Walter Cronkite took over the CBS evening newscast in 1966.
70 Years Ago Today: Buddy Holly released his first single, “Love Me,” in 1956. It was not a hit.
Tune in Tomorrow: HBO’s Game of Thrones turns 15, Gerald Ford goes on SNL, and The Bay of Pigs.