Permabooks

Permabooks was a paperback division of Doubleday, established by Doubleday in 1948. Although published by Doubleday's Garden City Publishing Company in Garden City, Long Island, the Permabooks editorial office was located at 14 West 49th Street in Manhattan.

Promoted with the slogans Books of Permanent Value for Permanent Use and Books to Keep, the early Permabooks were priced at 35 cents. They did not feature the flexible covers usually associated with paperback books. Instead, as the name implies, the first Permabooks were designed in a more durable format with board covers. The interior looked like a paperback, but the exterior, measuring 4⅜" wide by 6½" deep, gave the impression of a reduced-size hardcover. The edges of the stiff, unflexible board cover extended 1/8" past the trim of the interior pages.

The concept was heralded in a back cover blurb:

The initial format only lasted three years, with Doubleday switching to the standard paperback appearance in 1951, as indicated by Hyde Park Books' breakdown of the numbering sequence:

The Perma Star imprint began in 1952. Perma Special, which also began that year, was a higher quality line selling for 50 cents. These imprints included originals by Richard Stark (a Donald E. Westlake pseudonym) and Ed McBain (pseudonym for Evan Hunter).

In 1954, Doubleday sold Permabooks to Pocket Books, which kept the Permabooks name as one of their imprints, issuing both originals and reprints.

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