noun: an inexpensive novel. The name comes from their cheap binding which was often covered with yellow paper.
Some book publishers began mass-producing cheap, sensationalist novels in the 1840s, in an effort to compete with the increasingly popular penny-dreadfuls (which was cheap popular serial literature). It was the predecessor of the modern paperback book.
These books were printed and bound in bright mustard-yellow jackets to attract readers’ attention, and were put on sale as impulse buys in tobacconists, train stations, and other everyday locations rather than booksellers.
Yellowback publishing didn’t last, however the name continues to describe any sensationalist, mass-produced, and often poor-quality novel.
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