Edmund Lester Pearson (1880–1937)

Queer Books is a queer book in itself. It's a thematic review of the popular (and not so popular) genres of the previous century of American literature. As the book was published in 1928, the books covered are those from the 1800s. Although most (all?) of the books mentioned have faded into obscurity the cross section of genres hasn't changed much all these years later. The temperance books are akin to the recent rise in popularity of Christian fiction. The Crochets are today's Self Help Books. There is a chapter devoted to self published books, an industry still going strong. The book ends with a couple chapters of "Sudden Death" books which show that our interest in "True Crime" books goes way back. The only fault with Queer Books is perhaps a result of the space between me a reader of 2004 and the author of 1928; some of the cultural references have been lost over time making some pieces of the book rather dry reading.… (mere)

A compendium of pop culture circa 1928. What a hoot of a book! I especially enjoyed the overview of the murder tracts and gallows broadsides, but the section on etiquette books was quite amusing as well.

One section in particular caught my attention. The author goes into great detail about three sisters, Amy, Elizabeth and Cynthia Halzingler, who cut a swath of murder and mayhem across the country. They were born here in Little Rock, Arkansas. I just may have to pay a visit to the newspaper morgue to find any articles written about them (the book references at least one mentioning the family published in the Arkansas Democrat, now defunct as an entity itself, but taken over by another daily -- ah, the Arkansas newspaper wars...). Note to self, they were born in Arkansas sometime after 1826 and left for San Francisco in 1853.… (mere)