For a brief period in the 1940s and 1950s, mass market paperback books had covers with sultry women, shadowy detectives, and thrilling action, sold for a quarter at newsstands and drug stores across the country. Let me tell you the story about how lurid pulp covers democratized literacy, sparked a federal moral panic, and permanently altered the course of modern book design. Democratizing literacy Until the 1940s hardcover books were expensive luxuries sold in high-end bookstores. Pulp magazines became popular in the 1930s – cheap mass-produced fiction printed on low quality paper and sold…