Little Blue Books were slim, inexpensive reprints of the world's great literature, philosophy, and social thought. They were one of the biggest publishing sensations of the twentieth century. The Little Blue Book Company was founded by Emanuel Haldeman-Julius (1889–1951), who believed that everyone, regardless of income, should be exposed to history's best literature. In 1919, his press in Girard, Kansas, began printing the booklets, which cost as little as a nickel apiece and were small enough to fit in a shirt pocket. The works were wildly popular and eventually sold over five hundred million copies. (As a comparison, by late 2001, the popular Harry Potter series [see entry under 1990s—Print Culture in volume 5] had sold over one hundred million copies worldwide.)

Haldeman-Julius and his wife Marcet (1887–1941) were socialists. (Socialists believe that the production and distribution of goods should be owned by the community or the government...