In the 1966 animation of Dr. Seuss’s How The Grinch Stole Christmas, the Grinch is ruminating aloud about his dislike of all things Who to his dog Max:
…and they’ll play noisy games like Zoo-Zither kar-Zay…
…a rollerskate type…
…of lacrosse and croquet…
The word ‘yellowback’ hails from the mid-to-late 1800s and was generally used to describe books that were cheaply made — bound with yellow paper or board — and of a sensationalistic nature. Somewhat similar to penny dreadfuls — lurid, sensationalist books that literally cost a penny when they first came into being — a yellowback is {1} cheap, and {2} entertaining.
As a fan of mystery/thriller/adventure novels, I have definitely read my share of yellowbacks. In the mid 1900s, many books were published on cheap pulp (thus, the term pulp fiction) for mass publication and share a common ‘yellowback’ trait of having quickly acquired yellowed edges. Books that have lasted from then until now — examples of which, from my own collection, can be seen in the photo above — tend to have paper pages that are somewhat rough and their texture has gotten brittle over time. Along with the yellow edges (also visible, above), these time period novels are/were “cheap” and are some of my favorite things to find and read.
The ones pictured above, from a different angle, are:
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One of the things that is easy to forget, especially when one is fond of literature, is that literacy is first required before one can enjoy it.
It’s an unhappy fact that illiteracy is still such a huge issue globally; that illiteracy rates exist at all in countries that can afford otherwise (I’m not going to pretend that education is not expensive — it is, regardless of who is footing the bill), it is appalling.
In the United States, if a person is unable to write — which does not necessarily mean they cannot read but the correlation exists in high percentages — but is eligible to vote (based on age and citizenship), that person can sign an X in lieu of their name on their ballot return. The signed X must be witnessed (see example above) and the witness’s signature becomes a guarantor. So luckily (kind of? I can’t really fathom that being unable to read or write would be lucky) there is some level of protection in place for “uneducated” people to be able to vote in my home country.
But what about accessing information?
And vetting information?
The former requiring systemic literacy (knowledge of systems) and the latter requiring media literacy (understanding source reliability, being aware of data and statistic falsities, and comprehending what fact-checking means). Content area literacy is required to make any kind of informed decision, and ‘content’ is not just academic; it is cultural, religious, sociological, economic, legal, business-focused, theoretic, linguistic, and social.
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S. S. VanDine was the pseudonym under which Willard Huntington Wright wrote his mystery novels, which starred the American wealthier-than-thou sometime-sleuth, Philo Vance.
Philo Vance was a household name in the 1920s and 1930s. VanDine published eight books in that time period and his character, Vance, was one of only two notable ‘gentlemen’ detectives in the American school of mystery writing.1
If you are not familiar with the books but are perhaps familiar with old school Hollywood, Philo Vance was the character best brought to life on screen by future Thin Man actor, William Powell. The way Vance was played on screen though was slightly more suave than the way he behaved on paper. And the way the author behaved in real life is another story all together.
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