Click the group of books beginning with number:

12

250

These were the non-fiction books produced by Fawcett. Later in the run, there would be some fiction anthologies; and in the 1970's, even a few novels. Oddly, the price guides grossly neglect theses paperbacks. Jon Warren's guide doesn't even mention their existence; and Graham Holroyd (who took over Warren's database) only lists two books ... period. Kevin Hancer's price guide lists about fifty of them.

For a history of Fawcett books, please see my write-up about Gold Medal.

The truth of the matter is that the Fawcett brothers had very few original ideas. Even the comic book "innovation" of Captain Marvel (which I mentioned in that Gold Medal post) was a blatant rip-off of the comic industry's greatest super hero, and resulted in one of the longest-running U.S. court cases involving a literary character. Click HERE.

As mentioned before, in 1949, Fawcett entered into a handshake agreement to distribute books printed by New American Library with the stipulation that they (Fawcett) would not publish paperback reprints of their own. (They "got around" that agreement by printing only paperback originals through their Gold Medal label.) In addition to Signet Books, this also included distribution of NAL's non-fiction label, Mentor.

(A year earlier, the U.S. branch of Penguin had broken away from the British parent company and formed NAL. Penguin had a non-fiction label called Pelican. Ergo, at NAL, "Penguin" became "Signet." "Pelican" became "Mentor." Those were the labels Fawcett agreed to distribute.)

And wouldn't you know it: Fawcett's Premier books looked exactly like Mentor books. Same size, same approximate width. They fit perfectly on the racks that Fawcett kept stocked and blended right in with the other books. What's confusing to me is that Fawcett made no attempt to hide the fact that most of these were, indeed, paperback reprints. I'm not sure how the company circumvented that part of their "contract" with NAL.

The first Premier book was number 12 (I have not been able to determine why). None were offered at the standard (25¢) price. They had prefixes: "s" for 35¢, "d" for 50¢, "t" for 75¢, "m" for 95¢, etc. Eventually, the small-case letters would become capitals. Fawcett's other labels, Gold Medal and Crest, used the same prefixes.

Those first three letter prefixes listed there, "S," "D" and "T" were already in use at New American Library for exactly the same prices.

Even the company name appeared to blur the line between themselves and New American Library. They called the book publishing arm of the corporation "Fawcett World Library."

This page was updated in April, 2021