The Material History of the Novel II: 1973–Present

This chapter outlines the main developments in publishing, bookselling, and reading during a period which ended with the physical format of the novel beginning to undergo radical change. The year 1973 was a moment of ‘crisis’ in British and Irish fiction. Increasing costs of production and escalating retail prices, coupled with cuts to public library budgets, challenged the structures of the book trade and appeared to threaten the very existence of the ‘literary’ novel. For a variety of reasons, the book industry experienced more acutely than other trades the effects of the global recession that accompanied the world energy crisis of 1973–74. This chapter considers the changes occurring in the decades following the crisis of the 1970s: the intensification of ‘bestsellerdom’, the changes undergone by book retailers, the rise of the paperback, conglomeration in the publishing industry, among others.