Sixpenny Wonderfuls

"... she had been brought up to believe that to read a novel before luncheon was one of the gravest sins a gentlewoman could commit ...".

At the turn of the century thousands of women must have been prepared to sin, for series like Chatto & Windus' sixpenny novels were reaching an ever-widening public, and their covers were designed to intrigue, to persuade and to entice the reader into committing that sin over and over again..

Here are all the elements of human life - desperate men and weeping women, proud fathers and intrepid explorers, sweet daughters and flamboyant women of the world.. The covers have been chosen from books first published between 1880 and 1914, and the illustrations include some of the equally marvellous Pears advertisements on their backs.

Brief notes on the novels and their authors, some still famous and others long since forgotten, are included in this nostalgic journey into gems from the past.