1901

More oldies, with a few holdovers from the previous year. Apparently, this Winston is not the former prime minister.

1. The Crisis, Winston Churchill 40 copies on LT

2. Alice of Old Vincennes, Maurice Thompson 8 copies

3. The Helmet of Navarre, Bertha Runkle 5 copies

4. The Right of Way, Gilbert Parker 5 copies

5. Eben Holden, Irving Bacheller 7 copies

6. The Visits of Elizabeth, Elinor Glyn 0 copies

7. The Puppet Crown, Harold MacGrath 3 copies

8. Richard Yea-and-Nay, Maurice Hewlett 0 copies

9. Graustark, George Barr McCutcheon 14 copies

10. D'ri and I, Irving Bacheller 1 copy

Once again uncooperative touchstones going astray.

Goose eggs for me on this list. I did read a book by Irving Bacheller once: A Man for the Ages, which I inherited after a major spring cleaning of my great-aunt's house. It was a fictionalized biography of Abraham Lincoln, if I remember at all correctly (it's been at least 40 years).

I am especially taken by the name Bertha Runkle. The Helmet of Navarre is available in five editions from Barnes and Noble dot com; I am seriously tempted.

Robert

The Visits of Elizabeth by Elinor Glyn is up to 5 copies. The touchstones are putting up a furious fight.

I've got nothing, here. I wonder if the Helmet of Navarre is enjoyable.

My time period! I LOVE the language of old books. Please tell me where the lists come from.
Winston Churchill's books are about the growing malaise of unbelief. He and the other Winston did meet when the Prime M. visited the US.
George McCutcheon wrote trashy adventure- romances. Fun, but not litrature. The same can be said for Elinor Glyn. Her Elizabeth books are charming.
I've read The Right of Way, but have no recollection of the content, though I still own a copy, which means it might be worth a re-read. Eben Holden is a colonial historical fiction, I think.

"The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay" has eight copies listed now in LT. Kind of a wonky Touchstone.

2wonderY, the lists are from Publishers Weekly, a book trade magazine.

A fairly decent listing of bestsellers for the 20th century can be found at: http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/%7Eimmer/booksall . One should note that bestselling non-fiction books were not compiled for very year in the early part of the 20th century.

Thanks! That is precisely what I was looking for. Seeing the decades on one page is enlightening, too.

I used to use the publisher lists on the dust-covers and at the backs of books to hunt for more likely titles.

At some point I'll start a thread asking about people's favorite decade.

Someone just identified Winston Churchill's The Crisis in a "Name that Book" topic
https://www.librarything.com/topic/283557#

I might have to check it out now. I'm always intrigued by books people remember favourably enough to go looking for again, and discovering it was also a number one bestseller for its year compounds it.

>9 vpfluke:, that's really fascinating! Especially the "historically significant" other titles for each year. Gives me hope that quality really does endure and rise to the top, once the chaff has had its day and been forgotten.

>11 Cecrow: Wrong touchstone there.

I read most of that Churchill's (He's American, not the British PM) works decades ago. They are spiritual searches for meaning in the everyday life.

The Crisis

The Crisis now has 222 copies in LT. The Visits of Elizabeth now has 24, nice change from 0. Perhaps the 0 copies of Maurice Hewlett's book was due to not having the full title: The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay. It has 17.