AI Summary
5 min readThe Pocket-Sized Paperbacks That Saved Soldiers' Minds
On September 21, 1944, somewhere on the Western Front, an American artillery battery was getting pounded by German 88s. Between bursts, the colonel noticed one soldier reading a book. When the shelling stopped, he asked what it was: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith's recently published novel about a poor girl growing up in early 20th-century Brooklyn. The soldier offered to read aloud, and soon the entire unit was doubled over laughing at a passage about a toddler named Gussie who refuses to wean—a "tough little hellion" who drinks black coffee and, when his mother finally tries to stop him, bashes his head on the floor until she caves. The men "laughed like hell between bursts," as the colonel later wrote to Harper Brothers in "sheer gratitude." They weren't reading a hardback. They were reading an Armed Services Edition—a cheap, pocket-sized paperback designed to survive the vicissitudes of war.
How 123 Million Books Got to the Front
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:26) **A Soldier Reads in a Foxhole** - A colonel recalls a day in 1944 when, between German artillery barrages, he discovers a soldier reading a small paperback.
- 2 (13:27) **Introducing the Armed Services Editions (ASEs)** - Professor Greg Jackson explains how these unique paperbacks came to be and why they were revolutionary.
- 3 (18:42) **Connecting ASEs to Halloween and Guy de Maupassant** - The episode pivots to its Halloween theme, linking the ASEs to a French author with a macabre streak.
- 4 (20:32) **Story One: "The Hand" by Guy de Maupassant** - The first full story begins, a psychological mystery about a judge recounting a strange case in Corsica.
- 5 (30:02) **The Murder of Sir John Rowell** - The story reaches its climax as the judge investigates the Englishman's bizarre death.
- 6 (33:29) **The Judge's Unsatisfying Explanation** - The story concludes with the judge's rational theory, which the listeners reject.
- 7 (38:09) **Story Two: "Was It a Dream?" by Guy de Maupassant** - The second, more ghoulish story begins, narrated by a man mad with grief over his lover's death.
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Guests on this episode
Show Notes
“‘What is that?' I asked. The Englishman answered calmly: 'It was my best enemy.’”
This is the story of the little books that went to war, and the Frenchman whose ghosts we'll read by their light.
In 1943, a consortium of American publishers began slipping pocket-sized paperbacks into the hands of GIs bound overseas: the Armed Services Editions. More than 120 million of these ASEs were printed by the war’s end, and they turned up everywhere: foxholes, troopships, field hospitals, and more. In fact, we’ll meet one colonel who fondly remembers a soldier reading aloud to their gun crew while German 88s whistled in. The Germans tried to kill them as they laughed and enjoyed good writing.
And among the 1,300-odd titles the program carried to the front were the works of a certain French master of the macabre: Guy de Maupassant. The Armed Services Edition gave GIs Maupassant the realist … but we’ll encounter two tales that reflect the Frenchman’s more ghoulish side.
Happy Halloween.
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