Perhaps the most famous of books at the time of their publication, best-sellers win public notice, not for their quality, but for their popularity. Since the late nineteenth century, booksellers, book publishers, and book critics have collected and printed lists of best-selling books in order to learn and document which books appeal most to readers at the moment. This information reveals much about American culture. As Michael Korda writes in Making the List: A Cultural History of the American Bestseller, 1900–1999, "Like a mirror, [the best-seller list] reflects who we are, what we want, what interests us. . . ." In a circular way, best-seller lists also determine what the public will be reading in the future, since publishers use the lists when deciding which books will be most profitable to publish.

During the 1890s, the publishing industry in the United States was on the rise. Improved public education had produced a...