Bestsellers: Popular Fiction Since 1900 (2002) by Clive Bloom In many respects, Clive Bloom’s ‘Bestsellers’ is an excellent book that I would recommend to anyone with an interest in the history of publishing, reading, and the emergence of ‘the bestseller’ in the twentieth century. And Bloom chooses some of my favourite authors, including P.G. Wodehouse  to illustrate his points. Bloom tracks the development of ‘the bestseller’ alongside increasing literacy levels in Britain, showing how new literature classifications emerged (high-brow and low-brow) to keep class distinctions alive in literature, once the lower classes were no longer illiterate. He exposes ‘literary fiction’ … Continue reading Wodehouse misremembered