COLLECTING ROMANCE NOVELS: An Update

[The following is an article I wrote that appeared in Collectors' Club Newsletter #129 (Feb. 2020), which is a follow-up to an earlier article that I wrote for the publication. I have added a paragraph about Wikipedia to this new article and made a few other minor tweaks for its appearance here on this blog.]

     My previous article about paperback romance novels was in CCN #123 (Nov. 2018). I had never actually bought a romance novel until April 2018, and when I wrote the final revision of my article that October (the first draft was written in May), I had only read one or two of the romance novels that I'd acquired. So I'm hardly an expert. I think, however, that I did a fairly good job in summarizing the history of the genre in that article. There's not much I would change about what I wrote, based on what I've learned since, but today I could offer more details about some series and authors that I didn't know much (or anything) about back then. And if I wrote it now, I would acknowledge that I have indeed become a collector and reader of the genre.

     I'm a slow reader, and have always preferred to read short stories because I usually have a hard time finishing entire books. That changed for me in 2019 as I challenged myself to finish reading the novels that I started. In 2019 I read 20 romance novels, and hope to read even more in 2020. I keep track of them on the Goodreads website, rating and reviewing them after I finish each book.  One of the things I discovered is that romance novels are often so much fun to read that it makes finishing a book much easier than it might otherwise be.

     In my previous article I had mentioned how on April 23, 2018 I bought around 200 gothic romance novels at a local thrift store, and then a few days later, on April 26, I went back up to the thrift store and bought 1,267 romance novels, primarily old Harlequins. Most of the books had originally belonged to one owner, whose name was on the front inside covers (sometimes written, but usually with a printed label). This was a major book haul, my biggest ever, and there was no way that I could keep all the books -- at least not without getting rid of a lot of books I already owned to make room for them. And besides, I didn't consider myself a romance reader, so I had no intention of keeping the books. I very quickly began listing them in large lots on eBay, and in writing up the listings I learned a lot about a genre that I previously had ignored and knew next to nothing. By October, I had sold most of the books and wrote up the article in CCN #123 about it. A few of the books shown in the article, scanned from my own copies, I no longer have in my possession.

     In retrospect, I wish that I had hung onto many of the books longer. Of the roughly 1,467 books from those two April 2018 hauls, I only have 10 of them today. The books I held onto were: Anne Mather's first novel Caroline; two books by early 20th century writer Kathleen Norris; two gothic novels from the 1960s; and five books of Dell's Candlelight Romance series from the late 1960s / early 1970s. I've always been attracted to things that are a bit obscure (my love of Charlton comics, for example) and I think that's why I held onto the Dell Candlelight books when I didn't keep a single Harlequin from that April haul. The Dell books had been modeled on the original Harlequin Romance line, but are more varied in subject matter and therefore of more interest to me. In fact, I now collect the 1967-1982 Candlelight line and want to get them all eventually. So, I'm glad that I saved the Candlelights but regret that I parted with Harlequin novels like "Ward of Lucifer" (whose charmingly old-fashioned cover was shown in my article). The good thing is that romance novels tend to be cheap and plentiful in thrift and library book sales, so I managed to reacquire copies of a few of the books that I'd gotten rid of. Even "Ward of Lucifer" is bound to show up again someday.

     A turning point for me perhaps took place in June 2018, when at a local Value World thrift store I bought five Harlequin Intrigue and two Harlequin Superromance novels, all from 1984-1986. I still have them, and one of them is the second romance novel I ever read. My earlier haul had consisted mostly of 1960s-70s books, so those had the understandable appeal of looking vintage. Michael Neno (one of the only comics fans I know who will also occasionally buy an old romance novel) recently said, "I've relegated most of my paperback collecting to pre-1980. The illustration and design of the covers seemed to go downhill afterwards, with too much reliance on garish airbrushed colors, in all genres."  I might have thought the same at one time, but in fact some of the 1980s Harlequin covers are among my favorites. Also that June I learned that Harlequin had published a short-lived Gothic Romance Series from 1983 to 1988 which I wanted to collect. (I now have 7 of the 18 that were published.)

     The fact that I hung onto these particular 1980s Harlequins indicated an increased interest for me, beyond just my usual interest in old stuff.  I remember buying paperback novels in the mid-1980s as a teenager and would regularly look at new books on the shelves whenever I went to any store that sold books, whether it was a bookstore, a K-Mart, or a drugstore. So why had I not paid attention to the romance novels on the shelves at the time? When it comes to other things that I've taken an interest in later on, I had at least some memory of encountering them in the past. For example, a few years ago I started collecting DVDs of old British TV shows, and I was able to remember being exposed to certain shows going back to the 1980s. Or when I began collecting digest prose magazines, I was able to recall seeing them on the stands years before. But with romance novels, I retain no memory of any romance novel that I might have seen for sale back then. How could I have seen the front cover of a Regency novel back then, with its charming cover set in Ye Olde England, and not want to read it, or even remember it? It may have been a self-consciousness on my part, knowing that this sort of thing was aimed at women, not me, so I completely ignored them. Looking back, I am amazed how easily I fell into that mindset of ignoring them based on gender roles and fear of potential societal judgement. Sure, it's possible that I might not have liked them back then if I had tried them, but we'll never know because I didn't give them a chance. So now, in a way, I'm playing catch-up.

     In July 2018, I bought a lot of over 100 romance novels from an eBay seller for $30 postpaid. The lot was so huge that it was shipped in two big boxes. I look now at the photos I took of the books when they arrived and again wish that I had kept more of them before selling them off. Nonetheless, I did keep a higher percentage of them from this haul than I did from the one in April; I kept six Kathleen Norris novels, one Dell Candlelight book, and around 5 or 6 others. I regret that I soon parted with several historical romance novels from this lot, ones that I will likely repurchase at some point. One of the books that I thought about keeping but didn't was a novel titled "The Reverential Heart" by Sarita Irwin, which had the phrase "A Carousel Romance" at the top of the front cover. Recently I tried to find out more about this book, but discovered that it didn't even have an entry on Goodreads. If I had known how obscure it was, I would have held onto it -- or at least made a scan of the cover instead of just taking a photo of it.

     It's the obscurity of some of the books in this genre that fascinates me and makes me want to learn more.  When it comes to comic books, it's hard to find something truly obscure since most comics are indexed on sites like the Grand Comics Database and have been reviewed by fans in magazines and blogs. There is a dedicated fanbase scanning old comics and posting the covers on social media or even entire issues (copyright be damned) on the web. The FictionDB website does a great job of indexing prose novels and a lot of what I know about old romance novels comes from searching that site. But even there some books cannot be found (such as "The Reverential Heart") or are lacking a scan of the front cover. The fact that some romance lines don't have online indexes indicates a need for more research in the romance genre, the kind of obsessive attention to detail that fans of comics and science fiction take for granted.

     Of course part of the fun is trying to solve the mystery oneself, after stumbling upon a book whose existence one never knew, or indeed few people seem to know anything about. Recently I wrote a lengthy blog post titled "A Guide to Category Romance Novels (1965-1989)" where I listed in alphabetical order the various romance lines that had debuted prior to 1990. I initially didn't add "A Carousel Romance" to the list because I no longer had a copy of "The Referential Heart" to refer to, and information about that line (if it was a line) was next to nil on the net.  There was another line called "A Tiara Romance" that I've only seen a few cover images online but know almost nothing about. As I searched online for more series to add to the list, I kept learning about books I'd never seen and now wanted to own. I learned that there was a short-lived (1988-1989) publisher called Paegant Books that released only 120 paperback books, 72 of them romance. I probably passed them by a hundred times in my book sale shopping over the decades, but now I want them. I guess it's the same kind of completist mentality that causes some comics fans to want everything published by Atlas-Seaboard.

     Now that I've read around two dozen romance novels, I've discovered that my favorite category is historical romance. Since I'm a fan of old-timey stuff, it makes sense that I would favor stories that recreate the past. And my favorite kind of historical is Regency romance, which takes place in England during the early 1800s. These books have their own particular language and jargon reflective of the time in which they are set. For example, check out this passage from the opening of "The Reformed Rake" by Elizabeth Chater (Fawcett, 1984): "For the speaker of those self-dooming lines was that notorious rakehell, that top-o'-the-trees Corinthian, that out-and-outer, Philip, Lord Sandron, Baron Sandroval and Estes, a wily buck who had avoided the parson's mousetrap so adroitly for ten years that even the most determined of matchmaking mamas had long relinquished hope of snaring him, while the more conservative parents never permitted their ewe lambs to be caught in his dangerous vicinity." This is lively, over-the-top writing, and I love it; in fact this may be my favorite sentence in all of romance. I like a bit of poetry in my prose, and this is the kind of writing that makes one want to read it aloud. I hasten to add, however, that I've not yet read this book beyond the 2nd page, so hopefully the rest of it holds up.

     This novel was one of a long-running line of books which are known as "traditional Regency" novels because they are thin (roughly 200 pages or so) and have little to no sexual content -- the "cozy" equivalent of a historical romance.  Fawcett published hundreds of books in this line, which often have the phrase "A Regency Romance" on the cover, from 1974 to 1998. Unfortunately there is no index available of all the traditional Regency novels that Fawcett published, and I only know that they ended the line in 1998 when doing a Google search and finding a romance news webpage from 1998 that mentioned Fawcett was cancelling the line at the end of the year. Avon (who, like Fawcett, published comic books during the Golden Age) also had their own "A Regency Romance" line, as did Signet, Zebra, and Warner Books. Even Harlequin had one in the 1980s, around the same time as their Gothic line. Traditional Regency romance lines are no longer being published. Avon and Fawcett ended theirs in the late 1990s; Zebra Books ended their trad Regency line in 2005 and Signet followed suit in 2006. However Regency romance novels continue to be published by Avon, Harlequin and Zebra, among others, although not as a regular monthly line. The Harlequin Historical line (which began in 1988) continues to publish novels that take place during that time period. The spines of each book denote the specific subcategory that the novel belongs to (Regency, Viking, Medieval, etc.).

     Last year I bought a huge lot of 90 books by a writer named Joan Smith (when she wasn't writing under her occasional pen-name Jennie Gallant), nearly all of them for Fawcett's traditional Regency line. I haven't read one of them yet, given my backlog of books to read now, but just looking at them I have a feeling that I will enjoy them. And it's a satisfying feeling knowing that I'll be able to read a writer's nearly-complete output, perhaps in chronological order if I wish, and it won't be an impossible task since most of the books are short and the writing style looks fun. Back in 2018, I surely would have bought them just to re-sell them, but these days I try to buy them to keep them, or at least to read them and then decide whether to keep them or not.

     The romance genre has long been a significant facet of publishers like Avon and Zebra, but the publishers' (user-generated) Wikipedia pages reflect more the interests of collectors of their non-romance output. On the Wikipedia page for Avon Books, for example, romance novels receive four short paragraphs, while the rest of the entry is dominated by the comic books that Avon published in the 1940s-50s, and other genres like mystery and fantasy. Wikipedia's Zebra Books entry has only 9 sentences about their romance novels, but 8 sentences about their defunct horror line. Romance readers are perhaps less interested in documenting publishing history than their counterparts in other genres. While there are some good Wikipedia entries about romance authors, there are some puzzling inconsistencies. As I noted in my article in CCN #123, there is no Wikipedia entry for Silhouette Books, the romance line that Harlequin acquired in 1984 (and phased out in 2011). The entry for Harlequin has six sentences about Silhouette, and it's possible that it was decided to restrict the Silhouette information to the Harlequin entry instead of giving it a page of its own (even though many other Wikipedia pages reference Silhouette, some with a link to a page that does not exist). While the Harlequin entry provides a good overview of the company's output, the entry for Mills & Boon is unfortunately marred by a large "Criticism" section where various intellectuals are quoted bashing the novels for the supposed harm they cause. It's interesting to compare the negativity that Mills & Boon receives in their Wikipedia entry to the uncritical summary of Harlequin in their entry -- even though both publish many of the same novels.

     One surprise for me with my new-found interest in romance novels is that now I find myself buying some books that I wouldn't have touched with a ten-foot pole before. If one were to have asked me a few years ago (or perhaps to Michael Neno today) what the absolute worst, least-interesting, most cringe-inducing romance novels were, the answer would probably have been the so-called "bodice rippers" of the 1980s-90s, the ones with Fabio on their garish covers.  And yet, of the 20 romance novels that I read in 2019, I gave only three of them the highest rating (5 stars) on Goodreads, and all three were lusty historical novels of that era. I hadn't looked past the covers before, but now having read a few I appreciate how much more engaging they are than the chaste romance novels of the 1960s. These are epic adventure stories filled with danger and drama, in addition to rape, murder, and kidnapping. What makes these novels "problematic" is that the raping, murdering and kidnapping is sometimes done by the hero himself!  However, there is a jaw-dropping astonishment that the reader experiences while reading them that makes the books addictive. So, now when I see one of those garish 1980s covers, I don't see something that looks cheesy and stupid, I see something that holds the promise of a thrilling adventure.

     The stigma against romance novels is something with which most comics fans can relate. The public has an idea of both comics and romance novels based on popular stereotypes and not necessarily on having read them. It takes time to develop an appreciation of anything, to understand what one is experiencing and make an informed judgement, instead of accepting and repeating inaccurate or outdated views. I hesitated to mention "bodice rippers" and Fabio in the paragraph above because those are two of the commonly repeated characteristics of the romance novel genre in the mainstream media, even though they apply to only a sliver of the genre's output and were a trend that died in the 1990s. It's similar to how newspaper articles about comic books could always be counted on to quote the "Zap!" and "Pow!" of the 1960s Batman TV show whenever the topic of the comics medium was discussed. Yes, superhero comics are great, but the medium is much more than that. And the same is true for romance novels.

     On a friend's Facebook wall recently, the controversy about racism involving the Romance Writers of America came up, and one of his male friends chimed in about the lack of male representation among romance writers. He was trying to compare the accusations of the lack of gender parity in science fiction to the situation in romance, but to me it is a false equivalency due to the fact that most men would not be caught dead even reading a romance novel much less writing one. When I asked the person if he had read a romance novel before, he replied, "Nah, never have" (and yet he felt qualified to judge the industry). The only woman who commented in the thread had this to say: "I suspect you were trying to be funny, but women have worked damn hard in publishing in general and in romance in particular to be taken seriously and we are tired of those sorts of jokes. Romance publishing is the backbone of the industry, it's a huge moneymaker when done right. I'm guessing that it's kept some publishers afloat in difficult times. It's one of the few genres that is still reliably and regularly published in mass market, which means it's more widely available to readers than most other types of fiction (except for big name bestselling writers)." 

     For most romance readers, recent releases dominate their interest and discussions. Books published prior to the year 2000 are often considered "old school," a sentiment which may take some getting used to for older comics fans like myself who still think of comics from the 1990s as "new." (I was a bit shocked a few months ago when I realized that John Byrne's most recent series for Marvel, "X-Men: The Hidden Years" debuted in 1999, over 20 years ago.) Some of today's most popular romance authors are ones whose first novels came out within the past 15 years. To bring up romance novels from the 1960s or 1970s is like digging up ancient history for most readers, who would probably find the writing in those old books dated or even offensive. I have to admit that the heroes in today's romance novels tend to be more defensible in their actions than in the old stories, with his motivations and thoughts made known to the reader instead of shrouded in mystery until the end when he reveals his love to the heroine. Today's romance novels also have long-running story arcs, series within series, just like comics do, or like the modern TV series that viewers often binge-watch in one sitting. And of course there is greater representation of different identities, especially regarding race and sexual orientation, than in the past.

     Even though I generally prefer old books for their vintage appeal, I have to admire the continued strength and success of the mass-market paperback romance novel. Looking at a big-box store's shelves of new Harlequins recently, I was struck by how the covers of some of the current Love Inspired Suspense line reminded me of the old gothic romance novels of the 1960s-70s. Although instead of a woman running away from a dark mansion (the common theme of those old gothic covers), today we had a frightened-looking Amish woman peering into the night at some unknown danger. Incidentally, if someone wanted to bring their stereotypes about the romance genre up to date, they can replace references to Fabio with references to Amish women, since that has become a popular subcategory of inspirational romance novels. The Amish themselves may be a small minority of the population in real life, but they can often be found peering out at the reader on the covers of today's romance novels.

     Of course, the Amish genre is unique to U.S. publishing; the U.K. has its own thriving romance market with its own characteristics, one which I have only recently begun to explore. Instead of Harlequin, they have Mills & Boon; instead of the Romance Writers of America, they have the Romantic Novelists' Association; instead of being a NY Times bestseller, books are described as a Sunday Times bestseller. It's like a parallel universe where one must relearn everything one thought one knew. There are historical novels by women authors that are referred to as "sagas" such as Holly Green's "Frontline Nurses" series (set during WW1) or her series of novels set in a Liverpool workhouse ("Workhouse Girl," "Workhouse Orphans," etc.). There is also "The Bomb Girls" series of novels by Daisy Styles, who also wrote "The Code Girls" and "The Wartime Midwives." Another nurse series is "The Nightingale Girls" by Donna Douglas; one of the books has a blurb on the cover saying "Fans of Call the Midwife will enjoy this."  Another author, Dilly Court, writes on her RNA member webpage, "If you are a fan of Downton Abbey then my books are for you!" She has written historical novels with such titles as "The Beggar Maid" and "The Ragged Heiress," as well as (under the pen-name Lily Baxter) wartime dramas like "Spitfire Girl."  Looking at the list of current "saga" writers at the Fantastic Fiction website is like looking through a window into another world that one never knew existed. Some of these books have not been published in the U.S., which in the past would have made it difficult to acquire them here. But today readers can purchase them online through places like Amazon, or download them directly to their electronic reading devices.

     There is a wide variety of romance subcategories to suit almost any taste. A couple weeks ago I learned about another one when I bought Silhouette Bombshell #92 ("Invisible Recruit" by Mary Buckham) at a library book sale. It turns out that this was part of an "action romance" line that ran from #1 (July 2004) to #124 (Jan. 2007) that involved women "fighting the forces of evil in the world." There were sub-series within this line such as Athena Force and Darkheart & Crosse. This would seem to me to be a subcategory of romance that would have crossover appeal for male readers, as would current lines like Harlequin Intrigue and Harlequin Romantic Suspense, whose covers emphasize danger and action. And yet most men appear to avoid those books as well. I haven't read this particular novel yet, but I have added it to my "to be read" pile for this year.

     I counted my romance novel collection today and the total comes to almost 600 books. Part of me feels like that is more than enough -- after all, would I have time to even read all of them if I was only able to read 20 last year?  And yet, for most of my life I have happily acquired comic books without too much regard about whether I had too many. I've not read many of those either, but that hasn't stopped me from buying comics (although admittedly I've sold off long boxes of them as well to make room for newer arrivals to the collection). The lesson I've learned since April 2018 is that I need not be hasty in selling off my latest romance acquisitions, since I might find some of them to be of interest later on that I didn't realize at the time. And it might take a little while to figure out what to keep and what to sell.

     For example, in the past dozen months or so, I acquired three romance novels from the 1960s written by D. E. Stevenson. Two of them were published by Avon: "Bel Lamington" and "The Blue Sapphire." The third is a U.K. edition of "The Blue Sapphire," published by Fontana Books. (Incidentally, all three editions did not have pages on the Goodreads site, so I have added them there.) My initial thought was to sell off the U.K. edition, since I didn't need two copies of "The Blue Sapphire."  I'd stick with the Avon edition since the two Avon books have a similar cover format, like they were part of a line of books by this author, and it matches the "Bel Lamington" book's look. However, I tend to like U.K. imports, and this one had a list in back for more Fontana books by the same author. So, perhaps in the future I will obtain a U.K. edition of "Bel Lamington" and decide to sell the Avon editions instead. Complicating matters is that there was also a line of D. E. Stevenson books published by Ace Books in the 1970s that have their own shared cover design, so if there is any duplication with those novels, I'll have to decide which line to favor. Fortunately I don't have to make a decision right away, so I'm hanging on to that extra U.K. edition until I know whether it "fits" my collection or not. Better to wait rather than regret its loss later.

   


     Finally, since my article in CCN #123, I have created a Facebook group called "Vintage Paperback Romance Novels" where I regularly post about my latest finds. Anyone who is interested in the topic is welcome to join. Unfortunately, the group doesn't have many members and I'm the most active poster there. However, last October I did learn of another private Facebook group that has numerous members who are knowledgeable about old romance novels and seem to appreciate the stuff I've written on the subject. In December I posted a photo of five Johanna Lindsey paperbacks that I'd just bought and my post received 185 "likes" from members of that group, more than any "likes" that I've ever gotten on Facebook for a post. On my own Facebook page, such posts receive little to no comment. So I'm thankful to Alan Sissom for inviting me to write this article for CCN's Valentine's Day issue because it's given me an excuse to share my love for this neglected and misunderstood genre.