Literature in Figures: An Essay on the Popularity of Thrillers
Lars Ole Sauerberg · Orbis Litterarum · 1983
Literature is also a market commodity, an aspect of texts that critics are becoming increasingly aware of. This essay, which has its roots in a major analytical work on English secret‐agent fiction, records the results of investigating the popularity of thrillers in general and the popularity of Ian Fleming, John le Carré and Len Deighton in particular, in England and the USA. At the same time the validity of different statistical sources are critically examined and compared. Apart from substantiating the expected popularity of the genre and the authors in question, the essay makes it clear that better standards in the area are needed.