If you choke to middle or high school in the U.S. in the last few decades , opportunity are you ’ve readTo Kill a Mockingbird , Harper Lee ’s now - Graeco-Roman novel ( which was adjust into a now - classicfilm ) about racial injustice in the South . Even if you grow up far - removed from Jim Crow law , you probably still interpret its significance ; in 2006 , British librarian vote it theone bookevery adult should learn before they cash in one’s chips . And yet the novel , while considered an instant winner , was n’t always specify for its immense celebrity , as we learned from theVoxvideo seriesOverrated . In fact , its status in the American literary canyon has a lot to do with the formatting in which it was printed .
To Kill a Mockingbirdcame outin paperback at a time when literary house were just starting to invest in the format . After its issue in 1960,To Kill a Mockingbirdwas review favorably inThe New York Times , but it was n’t the bestselling novel that year . It was the phylogenesis of paperbacks that facilitate put it into more hired hand .
Prior to the sixties , paperbacks were often kind of trashy , and when literary novels were published in the data formatting , they still featured what Vox call “ sexy back , ” like a softcover version ofTheGreat Gatsbythat featured a shirtless Jay Gatsby on the cover . According to a 1961 article inThe New York Times , back in the fifties , paperbacks were delineate as “ a showcase for the ‘ three S’s — sex , sadism , and the smoking gun . ’ ” But then , paperbacks came to schooling .
The mass - market soft-cover book forTo Kill a Mockingbirdcame out in 1962 . It was loud , but had stellar credentials , which appealed to teachers . It was a pop , well - reviewed book that earnedLeethe Pulitzer Prize . Suddenly , it was in virtually every school day and , even half a hundred afterwards , it still is .
see the whole floor in the video recording below fromVox .
