TheBestseller
Observatory

Best Sellers

Hardcover Fiction

Week of April 16, 1950

FictionNonfiction
WeekMonth
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1
THE WALL
John Hersey
Cover of THE WALL

THE WALL

by John Hersey · Alfred A. Knopf

5 wks at #1 · 6 on list

A novel describing the life of the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto during Poland's German occupation.

2
4
THE CARDINAL
Henry Morton Robinson
Cover of THE CARDINAL

THE CARDINAL

by Henry Morton Robinson · Simon & Schuster

2 wks on list

An "absorbing . . . magnificent" novel about an ordinary Irish Catholic man who ascends the church hierarchy to become Cardinal in the early twentieth century. ( Boston Herald) A selection of the Literary Guild, The Cardinal was published in more than a dozen languages and sold over two million copies. Later made into an Academy Award-nominated film directed by Otto Preminger and starring John Huston, the book tells a story that captured the nation's attention: a working-class American's rise to become a cardinal of the Catholic Church. The daily trials and triumphs of Stephen Fermoyle, from the working-class suburbs of Boston, drive him to become first a parish priest, then secretary to a cardinal, later a bishop, and finally a wearer of the Red Hat. An essential work of American fiction that remains even more relevant today. "Extraordinary . . . controversial . . . first rate storytelling and characterization that has enormous appeal." – Kirkus Reviews

3
1
THE EGYPTIAN
Mika Waltari
Cover of THE EGYPTIAN

THE EGYPTIAN

by Mika Waltari · Putnam

32 wks on list

Set in Egypt, more than a thousand years before Christ, it encompasses all of the then-known world. It is told by Sinhue, physician to the Pharaoh Akhenaton, and is the story of his life. Through his eyes are seen innumerable characters, fully drawn and covering the whole panorama of the ancient world.

4
1
THE PARASITES
Daphne du Maurier

THE PARASITES

by Daphne du Maurier · Doubleday

14 wks on list

The indolent offspring of two famous entertainers use their limited talents to maintain the fantasy world they have created.

5
JUBILEE TRAIL
Gwen Bristow
Cover of JUBILEE TRAIL

JUBILEE TRAIL

by Gwen Bristow · Ty Crowell Co

8 wks on list

Sheltered girl from the East makes the dangerous journey from Santa Fe to Los Angeles in pre-Gold Rush days and learns value of loyal friends.

7
THE HORSE'S MOUTH
Joyce Cary
Cover of THE HORSE'S MOUTH

THE HORSE'S MOUTH

by Joyce Cary · Harper and Brothers

10 wks on list

The Horse's Mouth is a portrait of an artistic temperament. Its principal character, Gulley Gimson, is an impoverished painter who scorns conventional good behavior. He may be a bad citizen, but he is a good artist, so wholly preoccupied with his art that he is willing to endure any privation for its sake. Such is his contempt for orthodox mores, he takes a delight in cocking a snook at them. For him there is only one morality: to be a painter.

9
1
GENTIAN HILL
Elizabeth Goudge
Cover of GENTIAN HILL

GENTIAN HILL

by Elizabeth Goudge · Grosset and Dunlap

14 wks on list

A collection of the author's short stories and selections from her novels.

10
6
THE FEAST
Margaret Kennedy

THE FEAST

by Margaret Kennedy · Rinehart & Company

2 wks on list

A story that would gather the Sins all under the roof of a Cornish seaside hotel managed by the unhappy wife of Sloth ... Among The Feast's entertaining cast of characters are a clergyman, a gaggle of adolescents and children, a quarter of lovers, and a clutch of frustrated husbands and wives - all serving Kennedy's dark and witty moral fable, which bears out the Biblical adage that many are called but only a very few chosen.

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2
MARY
Sholem Asch
Cover of MARY

MARY

by Sholem Asch · Putnam

26 wks on list
13
NEW
NOTHING
Henry Green
Cover of NOTHING

NOTHING

by Henry Green · Viking Press

1 wks on list

-- Jane Weatherby wants a more exciting match for her son than Mary Pomfret and decides to take action to break off their engagement. Central to her schemes is Mary's father, John, who used to be Jane's lover and just might be again. Narrated mainly through Henry Green's incomparable comic dialogue, Nothing is a satiric comedy of manners. -- First published in the U.S. by Viking (1950), most recent paperback edition published by Penguin in the collection Nothing; Doting, Blindness (1993). Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

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NEW
A RAGE TO LIVE
John O'Hara
Cover of A RAGE TO LIVE

A RAGE TO LIVE

by John O'Hara · Random House

'O'Hara is the only American writer to whom America presents itself as a social scene in the way it once presented itself to Henry James, or France to Proust' The New York Times When the beautiful, imperious and moneyed Grace Caldwell Tate wants something she goes after it, men included. Her affair scandalises Pennsylvania's elite and she must face the costs to her marriage and the man she really loves. A bestseller on publication in 1949, A Rage to Live is a candid tale of idealists and libertines, tradesmen and crusaders, men of violence and goodwill, and women of fierce strength and tenderness.

Historical bestseller data sourced from the New York Times Book Review, archived by Hawes Publications.