The 1930s in books

Who ruled the 1930s? Hervey Allen was Author of the Decade on the NYT Hardcover Fiction list. Every #1 bestseller of the 1930s, the biggest books and the top authors.

NYT Hardcover Fiction

Author of the Decade 1930s

Hervey Allen

35 crowns · 87 weeks among the top five authors · Era Power 1,115

Top authors of the 1930s
#	Author	Era Power	Crowns	Top-five weeks
1	Hervey Allen	1,115	35	87
2	A. J. Cronin	840	25	68
3	Margaret Mitchell	773	33	60
4	Sinclair Lewis	756	27	55
5	Kenneth Roberts	658	15	52
6	James Hilton	635	15	42
7	Rachel Field	618	16	43
8	Lloyd C. Douglas	603	3	50
9	John Steinbeck	579	24	39
10	Pearl S. Buck	526	9	39

Author of the Year, 1930s
Year	Author	Crowns
1931	John Galsworthy	6
1932	Charles Morgan	10
1933	Hervey Allen	26
1934	Hervey Allen	7
1935	Lloyd C. Douglas	3
1936	Margaret Mitchell	25
1937	Margaret Mitchell	8
1938	A. J. Cronin	16
1939	John Steinbeck	24

Every #1 bestseller of the 1930s74 books reached #1 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction list
First week at #1	Title	Author	Weeks at #1
Oct 12, 1931	The Ten Commandments	Warwick Deeping	1
Nov 16, 1931	Maid in Waiting	John Galsworthy	7
Jan 11, 1932	The Harbourmaster	William McFee	2
Jan 25, 1932	Mr. and Mrs. Pennington	Francis Brett Young	2
Feb 8, 1932	The End of Desire	Robert Herrick	1
Feb 15, 1932	Mary's Neck	Booth Tarkington	7
Apr 4, 1932	Magnolia Street	Louis Golding	4
May 2, 1932	Bright Skin	Julia Peterkin	1
May 9, 1932	A Modern Hero	Louis Bromfield	1
May 16, 1932	The Good Earth	Pearl S. Buck	3
Jun 6, 1932	District Nurse	Faith Baldwin	1
Jun 13, 1932	The Fountain	Charles Morgan	10
Aug 15, 1932	Faraway	J. B. Priestley	1
Aug 22, 1932	Lark Ascending	Mazo de la Roche	1
Sep 5, 1932	A New York Tempest	Manuel Komroff	1
Sep 12, 1932	The Sheltered Life	Ellen Glasgow	3
Oct 3, 1932	Sons	Pearl S. Buck	6
Nov 14, 1932	Invitation to the Waltz	Rosamond Lehmann	1
Nov 21, 1932	Flowering Wilderness	John Galsworthy	8
Jan 16, 1933	The Last Adam	James G. Cozzens	2
Jan 30, 1933	Ann Vickers	Sinclair Lewis	11
Apr 17, 1933	The Werewolf of Paris	Guy Endore	2
Apr 24, 1933	Rain in the Doorway	Thorne Smith	1
May 8, 1933	As the Earth Turns	Gladys Hasty Carroll	4
May 22, 1933	The Store	T. S. Stribling	1
Jun 12, 1933	Little Man, What Now?	Hans Fallada	3
Jul 3, 1933	Anthony Adverse	Hervey Allen	33
Jan 15, 1934	The Thin Man	Dashiell Hammett	3
Feb 5, 1934	Work of Art	Sinclair Lewis	7
Apr 2, 1934	The Oppermanns	Lion Feuchtwanger	2
Apr 30, 1934	Seven Gothic Tales	Isak Dinesen	1
May 7, 1934	Tender Is the Night	F. Scott Fitzgerald	1
May 21, 1934	Lamb in His Bosom	Caroline Miller	8
May 28, 1934	Five Silver Daughters	Louis Golding	1
Jul 23, 1934	I, Claudius	Robert Graves	1
Aug 6, 1934	So Red the Rose	Stark Young	17
Dec 3, 1934	Lost Horizon	James Hilton	1
Dec 10, 1934	The Forty Days of Musa Dagh	Franz Werfel	7
Jan 21, 1935	Heaven's My Destination	Thornton Wilder	5
Mar 4, 1935	Come and Get It	Edna Ferber	3
Mar 18, 1935	Of Time and the River	Thomas Wolfe	7
Apr 29, 1935	Green Light	Lloyd C. Douglas	3
May 20, 1935	Now in November	Josephine Johnson	3
Jun 10, 1935	Young Renny	Mazo de la Roche	1
Jun 17, 1935	Paths of Glory	Humphrey Cobb	6
Aug 12, 1935	Lucy Gayheart	Willa Cather	4
Sep 9, 1935	Vein of Iron	Ellen Glasgow	2
Sep 23, 1935	Europa	Robert Briffault	9
Nov 4, 1935	It Can't Happen Here	Sinclair Lewis	8
Jan 20, 1936	If I Have Four Apples	Josephine Lawrence	3
Feb 10, 1936	The Last Puritan	George Santayana	11
Apr 27, 1936	Sparkenbroke	Charles Morgan	5
Jun 1, 1936	The Weather in the Streets	Rosamond Lehmann	1
Jun 8, 1936	The Doctor	Mary Roberts Rinehart	4
Jul 6, 1936	Sanfelice	Vincent Sheean	1
Jul 13, 1936	Gone with the Wind	Margaret Mitchell	33
Feb 22, 1937	Drums Along the Mohawk	Walter D. Edmonds	4
Mar 22, 1937	Theatre	Somerset Maugham	5
May 3, 1937	The Years	Virginia Woolf	4
May 17, 1937	The Outward Room	Millen Brand	7
Jul 19, 1937	Northwest Passage	Kenneth Roberts	15
Oct 4, 1937	The Citadel	A. J. Cronin	25
Feb 7, 1938	The Prodigal Parents	Sinclair Lewis	1
Mar 21, 1938	Action at Aquila	Hervey Allen	2
May 16, 1938	The Yearling	Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings	12
Jul 11, 1938	My Son, My Son!	Howard Spring	11
Oct 24, 1938	Rebecca	Daphne Du Maurier	9
Nov 28, 1938	All This and Heaven Too	Rachel Field	16
Apr 3, 1939	Wickford Point	John P. Marquand	2
May 1, 1939	The Grapes of Wrath	John Steinbeck	24
Oct 9, 1939	Escape	Ethel Vance	5
Nov 20, 1939	Kitty Foyle	Christopher Morley	4
Dec 18, 1939	The Nazarene	Sholem Asch	1
Dec 25, 1939	Moment in Peking	Lin Yutang	1

Biggest books of the 1930sTitles that entered the list in the 1930s, by Book Power
#	Title	Author	Peak	Weeks	Book Power
1	Anthony Adverse	Hervey Allen	#1	86	996.2
2	Gone with the Wind	Margaret Mitchell	#1	78	819.2
3	The Citadel	A. J. Cronin	#1	60	718.7
4	Northwest Passage	Kenneth Roberts	#1	53	613.0
5	Drums Along the Mohawk	Walter D. Edmonds	#1	46	513.6
6	The Yearling	Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings	#1	42	499.8
7	All This and Heaven Too	Rachel Field	#1	38	483.8
8	The Grapes of Wrath	John Steinbeck	#1	35	458.1
9	Good-Bye, Mr. Chips	James Hilton	#2	41	391.1
10	My Son, My Son!	Howard Spring	#1	31	381.8
11	Rebecca	Daphne Du Maurier	#1	32	380.9
12	It Can't Happen Here	Sinclair Lewis	#1	31	350.2
13	So Red the Rose	Stark Young	#1	27	335.7
14	Green Light	Lloyd C. Douglas	#1	31	334.5
15	The Last Puritan	George Santayana	#1	29	329.5
16	Kitty Foyle	Christopher Morley	#1	25	292.9
17	The Nazarene	Sholem Asch	#1	24	281.7
18	Lamb in His Bosom	Caroline Miller	#1	24	278.4
19	Of Time and the River	Thomas Wolfe	#1	25	265.9
20	The Rains Came	Louis Bromfield	#3	28	263.5

Author of the Decade and the rankings are the ChartReign Power model: the author with the most chart power over the decade, not the most #1s. Crowns are weeks crowned Author of the Week. How it works