Viking Press took out a two-page ad in PW 83 years ago to keep sales rolling for John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.The ad included news of a bookselling contest and provided an update on early sales. The publisher said that in the first six weeks of publication it shipped 91,225 copies and promised that by June 18, 155,000 copies of the future classic would be in print.

From the Archive: June 3 1939 by Publishers Weekly on Scribd