The Best-Selling Book of Every Year — 1920 to 1924

Books are cool.

So are lists.

Lists of the best-selling books? Also, cool.

Since the early 1900s, we’ve had a rolling list of the best-selling books in America. I was curious about it.

Would I recognize any of the books? The authors? Who were they? What did they write? What was popular?

I decided to dive into it. Starting in 1920, I’m going to learn about the best-selling book of the year. And the author.

Let’s get going.

1920 — The Man of the Forest by Zane Grey

Zane Grey is widely considered one of the first millionaire authors. He was the author of more than 90 books, making the top ten best-selling list 9 years from 1917 to 1926, each selling more than 100,000 copies.

The Man of the Forest is 1 of 2 times he reached number 1 on the list. This novel follows a cowboy who overhears two villains’ plans to kidnap a rancher’s niece. The cowboy leaves his life in the wild to save her.

Zane wrote mostly Westerns but also wrote two hunting books, six children’s books, three baseball books, and eight fishing books. His lifetime book sales exceed 40 million copies, making him one of the top 250 best-selling authors in history.

Interesting guy too. Born in Ohio, he tried to make it as a professional baseball player for a few years before becoming a dentist. He wrote while doing dentistry and maintaining a very active fishing life. He ended up with multiple world records in fishing, including being the 1st person to ever catch a 1,000-pound marlin.

1921 — Main Street by Sinclair Lewis

Main Street is Sinclair Lewis’ first novel under his own name. Previously, he wrote under pseudonyms and for newspapers. The book was a smash hit, selling over 2 million copies in its first 2 years.

Main Street follows a woman’s struggle to bring progress to a small town in the face of rigid conservatism. Sinclair became known for his wit and humour, and his criticism of America’s consumerism and capitalist mindset.

This book was originally chosen to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1921 before the jury overturned the decision and awarded the prize to Edith Warton’s The Age of Innocence. Lewis later won the prize in 1926 but refused to accept it because he was still angry about the Main Street snub.

Sinclair Lewis later became the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930.

His popularity spiked recently when his book It Can’t Happen Here hit number 1 on Amazon’s bestseller list in 2016. The novel is a book about a fascist being elected President of the United States. Can’t imagine why that would have spiked in popularity…

1922 — If Winter Comes by A.S.M. Hutchinson

Born in India, A.S.M. Hutchinson is the first British author on our list!

Considered ahead of its time, If Winter Comes tells the story of an unhappy marriage, eventual divorce and an unwed mother’s suicide.

It was Hutchinson’s best-selling novel, although he had several places in the top 10 best-selling over the next few years. He did get into some trouble with the women’s rights movement over his novel’s views on women.

1922 is remembered more for the publishing of Ulysses by James Joyce, which although it didn’t place in the top ten bestselling books of 1922, is considered one of the greatest novels of all time.

1923 — Black Oxen by Gertrude Atherton

Our first female author on the list!

Black Oxen is a tragic romance between a young playwright and a beautiful woman who, gasp, was a 58-year-old woman extending her youthful looks through medical procedures! Scandalous!

A lifelong writer, she wrote across a variety of genres including supernatural horror, humour and romance. Gertrude Atherton was an early suffragist whose books often featured strong female characters challenging gender roles. She campaigned against sexual repression and wrote numerous editorials about the suffragette movement.

She was also an advocate for white supremacy. One of her earlier books, Senator North, was a warning against interracial marriages.

So.. some good, some bad.

1924 — So Big by Edna Ferber

So Big follows a Dutch widow and her son after they move to Illinois. To quote the author in her memoir, ‘Who would be interested in a novel about a middle-aged woman in a calico dress with wispy hair and bad teeth, grubbing on a little truck farm south of Chicago?’ Turns out, hundreds of thousands of Americans. It became the bestselling book of the year and won the 1925 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Born in Kalamazoo, Michigan to a Hungarian-Jewish father, Edna faced anti-Semitism all her life. She was known for being outspoken. She was one of the first prominent Americans to speak out about the Nazi Party in Germany. And on one occasion, led Jewish guests out of a house party after learning the host was anti-Semitic.

Her early dreams of becoming an actress were squashed by her family’s financial state so she worked as a reporter before breaking out as an author.

Her books became popular as film and musical adaptations and she eventually wrote musicals and stage plays as well. Ferber was reportedly the first author to assign film rights to her books on short-term contracts so that the rights needed to be renegotiated regularly.

Ferber never married, had no children, and is not known to have had any romantic or sexual relationships. In one of her early books, one of the characters says, ‘Being an old maid was a great deal like death by drowning — a really delightful sensation when you ceased struggling.’ Once, playwright Noel Coward joked about how her suit made her resemble a man, she replied, ‘So does yours.’

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This has been a delightful experience learning about these authors, books and times. I can’t wait to keep going.

Have you read any of these?

Stay tuned for more!