3 ms·

Hemingway was never JK Rowling, but he wasn't an obscure writer known only to academics and literature aficionados either. Your print run figure undersells his

Hemingway was never JK Rowling, but he wasn't an obscure writer known only to academics and literature aficionados either. Your print run figure undersells his popularity quite a bit. "The Sun Also Rises" was his first novel when he was an unknown. Wikipedia goes on to say that it was on its 8th printing two years after publication.[0] This says that it had sold a million copies by 1961 [1]. The first edition of "For Whom the Bell Tolls" was 75,000. [2]. "The Old Man and the Sea" was published in Life magazine, with a circulation of millions.[3] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sun_Also_Rises#Publication_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sun_Also_Rises#Publication... [1]: https://www.baumanrarebooks.com/rare-books/hemingway-ernest/sun-also-rises/76070.aspx#:~:text=An%20immediate%20success%2C%20The%20Sun,sold%20over%20one%20million%20copies https://www.baumanrarebooks.com/rare-books/hemingway-ernest/.... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Whom_the_Bell_Tolls#Background https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Whom_the_Bell_Tolls#Backgr... [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Old_Man_and_the_Sea#Background_and_publication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Old_Man_and_the_Sea#Backgr...

ghaff 3y ago
Hemingway was probably the best-known of the ex-pat Paris crowd during his lifetime. I expect some the Algonquin Roundtable writers may have been at least as equally well-known though as many wrote for popular magazines. Dorothy Parker's first volume of poetry sold 47,000 copies. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Parker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Parker
notahacker 3y ago
I certainly wouldn't claim Hemingway was obscure, but I don't see any of those figures undermining my point that the average person in 1926 wouldn't feel the inclination to read him over more digestible stuff (and the Bible) if they read at all. Sure, the first eight print runs of The Sun Also Rises probably had a total circulation equivalent to the playthrough of some tediously-narrated niche videos on YouTube, and by 1961 when Hemingway was firmly established as a Great American Novelist it had as many copies over more than quarter of a century as Where the Crawdads Sing sells in a quarter, but I don't think you can infer anything much about attention spans from the appeal of literary fiction.
schnitzelstoat 3y ago
Agatha Christie is one of the bestselling authors of all time and I know my grandparents used to read her books while growing up in the 30's and 40's. Those books have pretty good prose, it's perhaps not on the level of complexity of Hemingway (I've never read Hemingway so I couldn't say myself) but it is pretty complicated so I think there's definitely something to the argument that entertainment has 'dumbed down'.

ghaff 3y ago

Hemingway was probably the best-known of the ex-pat Paris crowd during his lifetime. I expect some the Algonquin Roundtable writers may have been at least as equally well-known though as many wrote for popular magazines. Dorothy Parker's first volume of poetry sold 47,000 copies. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Parker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Parker

notahacker 3y ago

I certainly wouldn't claim Hemingway was obscure, but I don't see any of those figures undermining my point that the average person in 1926 wouldn't feel the inclination to read him over more digestible stuff (and the Bible) if they read at all. Sure, the first eight print runs of The Sun Also Rises probably had a total circulation equivalent to the playthrough of some tediously-narrated niche videos on YouTube, and by 1961 when Hemingway was firmly established as a Great American Novelist it had as many copies over more than quarter of a century as Where the Crawdads Sing sells in a quarter, but I don't think you can infer anything much about attention spans from the appeal of literary fiction.

schnitzelstoat 3y ago

Agatha Christie is one of the bestselling authors of all time and I know my grandparents used to read her books while growing up in the 30's and 40's. Those books have pretty good prose, it's perhaps not on the level of complexity of Hemingway (I've never read Hemingway so I couldn't say myself) but it is pretty complicated so I think there's definitely something to the argument that entertainment has 'dumbed down'.