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Perma |
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Perma was started by Doubleday in 1949 during the heyday of paperbacks, just in time for the “paperback glut” of the early 50’s. The concept was to roll Doubleday’s hardcover offerings right into paperback circulation when it deemed the works ready. There were many radical experiments in the major paperback houses during this period. Most were abject failures, financially, including Dell’s l0˘ series of books. Perma’s addition to this Hall of Failures was a series of “Hardcover Paperbacks,” that is, hardcover versions of paperback-size books. They sold for 35˘, and most were non-fiction. Some were used as supplemental texts in schools. These were the first "P" series Perma's. Rather than watching the company fail in 1954, Doubleday sold the entire paperback operation to Pocket Book, which ran a pretty profitable program into the 60’s and beyond. So there are several “series” of books in the database. The first offerings were the 35˘ “P” series, which included both the hardcover books and "double-sized" paperbacks. There were also some 25˘ non-lettered books called “Perma Stars,” interspersed in numerical order. After Pocket Book took over, they changed to “M” series books, using 3000 (25˘) and 4000 (35˘) numbering. As the decade progressed, the Perma’s looked more and more like Pocket Books and Cardinals, with the distinctive silver or gold spines.
The Perma Database was updated in December, 2007 |
