Before the advent of television, reading was among the most popular of leisure activities. Light fiction--romances, thrillers, westerns--was the sustenance of millions in wartime and in peace. This lively and scholarly study examines the size and complexion of the reading public and the development of an increasingly commercialized publishing industry through the first half of the twentieth century. Joseph McAleer uses a variety of sources, from the Mass-Observation Archive to previously confidential publishers' records, to explore the nature of popular fiction and its readers. He analyzes the editorial policies which created the success of Mills & Boon, publishers of romantic fiction, and D. C. Thomson, the genius behind The Hotspur and other magazines for boys, and also charts the rise and fall of the Religious Tract Society, creator of the legendary Boy's Own Paper, as a popular publisher.