Yesterday’s Stories: Popular Women’s Novels of the Twenties and Thirties

While scholars have begun to study popular women’s novels of the 19th century, there has been relatively little attention paid to popular women’s fiction of the early 20th century. This is the first study to focus on popular fiction written by, for, and about women in the period between the two world wars. The author examines such well-known best sellers as Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind, Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca and Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth, as well as dozens of other popular novels that have been all but forgotten today, and seeks to uncover the values and attitudes widely held by middle-class women of the era by examining the basic beliefs affirmed in the books they read.