Publisher for the Masses, Emanuel Haldeman-Julius

Lee (Sunflower Justice), a professor emeritus of history at the University of South Dakota, offers a painstakingly researched, if somewhat uneven, chronicle of the prolific socialist publisher Emanuel Haldeman-Julius (1889–1951), creator of the enormously popular Little Blue Book line of paperbacks. Lee traces Haldeman-Julius’s life from his upbringing in Philadelphia as the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants; to his early journalistic career in Los Angeles and New York City; to his arrival in Girard, Kansas, in 1915 to work for the Call to Reason, formerly the country’s largest socialist newspaper. The book goes on to detail Haldeman-Julius’s rise to president of the Call’s publishing company and creation of the Little Blue Books, inexpensive, staple-bound volumes that sold hundreds of millions of copies and included classic works of literature, how-to manuals, and introductions to controversial topics. Lee emphasizes Haldeman-Julius’s advocacy for various political causes, including African-American and labor rights, but Lee’s best work comes in his portrayal of Haldeman-Julius’s wife, Marcet. The niece of Jane Addams of Hull House fame, and a bank manager, actress, and talented journalist and novelist, she emerges here as a woman equally committed to her independence and her mercurial husband. Anyone looking for insight into the Little Blue Books’ full cultural impact will need to look elsewhere, but Lee’s work is recommended for those interested in learning about a bygone marketing genius of publishing. (Feb.)