Genre-bendre

[oursin]

At the weekend I picked up a copy of Christianna Brand's London Particular (1952), a Silver Age mystery which has no great merits but which I have been wanting to get hold of since the plot turns on a young woman who is trying to access an abortion (so of some historical interest if no significant literary or genre merit).

It's a hardcover in dust-jacket, published by Michael Joseph.

And I was intrigued to see the list of 'In this series' on the back of the jacket:

(If you click on that image it should take you to a larger clearer one)

It's far from being just moar murder mystereez: it's quite a broad range, including mainstream fiction, Doris Lessing's The Grass Is Singing, and even sf - The Day of the Triffids, no less.

I found this intriguing, given that these days everything has to have its genre and will be shelved by it. How recently did that all happen? There was presumably an assumption that the reader would very likely be equally interested in all those offerings.