Chicago and the American Literary Publishing Industry

Volume Six in the Quest for World-Class Series

In national literature Chicago is known for the “Chicago School of Literature” a genre often described as the first true American literature. But the greater activity in Chicago was in popular literature.

• The first literary publishing from Chicago to have a national import was in Children’s Literature. It is the oldest continuously published genre from Chicago.

• The true detective genre of popular literature originated in Chicago and became a Chicago specialty

• The Western cowboy genre was a staple of Chicago publishers

• The largest America literary publisher of the late 1880’s was based in Chicago

• Chicago publishers dominated the bestsellers list in the first decade of the 20th century

• The most popular author of the first half of the 20th century was published by a Chicago publishing house

• The post World War II “adult fiction” publishing industry was first centered in Chicago

In the last decades of the 19th century Chicago had a large and diverse literary publishing industry by the end of the next century there were none. To learn why, read Volume Six, Literary Publishing, in the Quest for World Class series. For the print version in paperback (which also includes Volume Seven, Magazine Publishing in Chicago), take the link to the

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