If the Mondadori detective stories made history, it is because “yellow” became synonymous with the literary genre, precisely because of the color chosen for the launch of the new series, which sold out within months hundreds of thousands of copies that attract the attention of readers.
As he said Andrea Camilleriwho grew up with Giallo Mondadori: “A mystery is called a giallo only in Italy. Yellow not as a color in itself, nor as a symbolic meaning, but yellow as a cover color“.
It all starts in 1929when Mondadori publishes a series of detective books in a new guisewhich also wanted to visually identify a new literary genre still little known in Italy: THE Yellow books. The format of the volumes is almost square and the very colorful images are enclosed in a red hexagon.
The first authors to join the series are SS Van Dine with The Strange Death of Mr. Benson, E. Wallace with A man with two bodies, RL Stevenson with Suicide club, AK Green with A mystery of two cousins. It was immediately a great success. The first four titles sold over 50,000 copies. Scream on the cover A book that won’t let you sleep becomes a real passport between readers. Operation, born librariesalso spread rapidly in newsstandsWhere Giallo Mondadori is still present today.
94 years have passed since then. A true world record that no other periodic initiative has ever matched. With this exhibition dedicated history of the Mondadori crime novelwe follow all the stages of the growth of the series, from its debut in 1929, by reproducing the first four covers that inaugurated I Libri Gialli, we go through the different stages that brought Mondadori Giallo to bookstores, such as the return to the newsstands after the Second World War, with a new look and new newspapers, so-called Mondadori detectiveswhich lasted until issue #434 in May 1957 when he became Mondadori yellow, a true editorial brand that has survived to this day.
Together with a collection of books that have marked the history of the series, thanks to the collaboration on the installation with Rosellini Foundation of Senigallia and to Mondadori Foundationare present at the exhibition Pietrasanta which will be held from November 24 to January 7, 2024 of large panels that illustrate the graphic history of Giallo Mondadori in all its many transformations, as well as some original plates from Carlo Jaconoone of the historical illustrators of the series.
Wandering through colorful envelopes and scented paper of a literary genre, a publisher’s brand, and finally a piece of our country’s history.