Joy Street
First edition
AuthorFrances Parkinson Keyes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
GenreNovel
PublisherJulian Messner (US) / Eyre and Spottiswoode (UK)[1]
Publication date
December 1, 1950
Media typePrint (hardcover)
Pages490 pp

Joy Street is a 1950 novel by Frances Parkinson Keyes. Despite only being released on December 1, 1950, it was ranked as the second best-selling novel in the United States for 1950.[2] Over two million copies were in print by the mid-1950s.[3][4][5] It also topped the New York Times Best Seller list for eight weeks in 1951.

The novel is set in Boston and explores a married couple facing the elitist expectations and norms of Boston society. Kirkus Reviews described it as a "meticulously caparisoned romantic novel."[6] William Darby's 1987 review of the popular literature of the 1950s describes the novel as "a characteristic woman's novel", which "unfolds at an excruciating pace."[7]

The novel was also serialized in Good Housekeeping magazine in November and December 1950.[8]

References

  1. ↑ (28 July 1951). An Engrossing Modern Story (review), The Age
  2. ↑ Hackett, Alice Payne. Seventy years of best sellers, 1895-1965, p. 185 (1967) ("second in fiction sales, it reached its place in only one month in the bookstores. It was published on December 1 with an advance of 110,000. Re-orders makes its total, by the end of the year, 140,285.")
  3. ↑ The Publisher, Volume 170, Part 1, p. 34 ("Joy Street has been Mrs. Keyes' most popular novel, and it has sold over 2,000,000 copies in the English language alone.")
  4. ↑ Cournos, John. Middle-Drawer Brahmins (review), The New York Times (subscription required)
  5. ↑ Branswell, Mary (23 December 1950). Charms of Boston Colors New Novel (review), Manitoba Ensign
  6. ↑ (12 December 1950). Joy Street (review), Kirkus Reviews
  7. ↑ Darby, William. Necessary American Fictions: Popular Literature of the 1950s, p. 166 (1987)
  8. ↑ Pawley, Christine. Reading Places: Literacy, Democracy, and the Public Library in Cold War America, p. 228 (2010)
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