Paperbacks have been around Europe since the 17th century but initially they were expensive and available only to the few. They became more widely accessible with the invention of the steam-powered rotary press and the development of the railway networks that enabled wider distribution. The 1860s saw the birth of the US ‘dime novel’ and the first ‘penny dreadfuls’ appeared soon after in the UK. These early paperbacks were tales of romance, of derring-do on the wild frontier. The first …