Laura Jean Libbey is better known for a type of literature than for any single title. When she died in 1924, The New York Times marveled that her novels, published over a four-decade career, would fill five feet on a bookshelf. To the Times she seemed a quaint reminder of the past, "an era of woodcuts," when popular literature appeared weekly as serials in the family story papers with circulations as high as 350,000 per week. By 1924 the decline of Libbey's popularity highlighted the shift in fashion as specialized magazines moved away from the melodramatic stories once printed in the inexpensive story papers and reprinted in "libraries" and series produced by multiple publishers for readers who paid 5¢ for the latest installment in a weekly story paper, or 10¢ to 25¢ for the entire novel. Hardcover copies for 50¢ to $1.00 were also published both in the United States and in...