pulp novels
Sensational mass-market fiction
Pulp novels are cheap, sensational fiction mass-produced on rough wood-pulp paper, especially from the 1920s through 1950s.
The term evokes lurid cover art and breathless genre fare—detective stories, science fiction, westerns, romance.
Pulp suggests disposability and low literary ambition, though many respected writers got their start in the pulps: He devoured pulp novels as a teenager.
- dimeU.S. ten-cent coin
- dime storeDiscount variety retailer
- paperbackBook with flexible cover
- dog earedCreased at corners
- noirHard-boiled film genre
detective · hardboiled · trashy · lurid · gumshoe · cheap · sleazy · femme fatale · mystery · thriller · crime · magazine · sensational · gritty · seedy · cover art · drugstore · fiction
- bookstoresbookshelves, bookstores, bookshops, booksellers, indie bookstores
- popular fictionbestsellers, genre fiction, page-turners, mysteries, detective fiction
- pulp fictionpenny dreadfuls, potboilers, page turners, page-turners, paperbacks
- Queer Litgay fiction, queer romance, queer authors, coming-out stories, queer fiction
pulp novelsliterary classics
Celebrated enduring works
literary fiction · canonical works · classic novels · belles-lettres · Shakespeare
pulp novelsdeluxe editions
Enhanced product versions
hardcover editions · leather-bound books · first editions · limited editions · collector's editions
pulp novelsexperimental fiction
Nontraditional narrative prose
modernist novels · postmodern literature · metafiction · literary realism · psychological novels
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