Popular Library

Popular Library is a New York paperback book company established in 1942 by Leo Margulies and Ned Pines, who at the time were major pulp magazine and newspaper publishers.

[5] Popular won the Carey Thomas Award in 1976 for distinguished fiction in mass-market publishing under editorial director Patrick O'Connor.

[2] The line-up of Popular Library novelists included Mary Roberts Rinehart, John Dickson Carr, Anthony Powell, P. D. James, Harper Lee, Helen Van Slyke, Margaret Atwood, Margaret Drabble, Jean Rhys, Ann Beattie, Taylor Caldwell, Anne Tyler,[2] Craig Rice, Cornell Woolrich,[1] Sam Cherry, Octavus Roy Cohen, Mignon G. Eberhart, Ernest Haycox, Rufus King, Arthur Miller and John Steinbeck.

The cover art became more eye-catching and vivid with the addition of illustrators Rudolph Belarski, Earle K. Bergey and Rafael DeSoto.

[1] John Erskine's The Private Life of Helen of Troy is an early Popular Library title with conspicuous cover art and blurb ("Her lust caused the Trojan War") which made it eagerly sought by collectors.