1834 Globe (Washington, D.C.) 29 Nov. For sale by the complete set or single number, bound, or in paper backs.]

1843 Southern Literary Messenger Nov. 704/1 Their ‘Ladies' cabinet series’ are among the neatest and most entertaining of the cheap paper-backs.

1884 Telegraphist 1 Aug. 116/1 A friend suggests that..the ‘Directory’ be issued, in paperback, at, say 3d. or 6d.

1899 R. Kipling Stalky & Co. 35 There are a pile of paper-backs on that shelf.

a1911 D. G. Phillips Susan Lenox (1917) II. vii. 192 He was looking toward the row of paper backs that filled almost the whole length of the mantel.

1962 A. Huxley Let. 11 Feb. (1969) 929 Zen Flesh, Zen Bones (now in paperback).

1971 New Scientist 19 Aug. 433/1 It looks as if most people are going to have to wait for the paperback.

1994 Amer. Spectator June 62/1 A pre-packaged and easily excisable clump of praise, suitable for framing on the back of the book when it comes out in paperback.

1884 Library Jrnl. Oct. 182/2 The ‘library’..consists of paperback dime novels, the whole collection possibly worth $3.

1887 Trans. & Proc. Mod. Lang. Assoc. Amer. 2 67 We want a short representative work of each prominent author, printed in cheap form, paper-back say, so that the student can own it.

1898 World (N.Y.) 7 Mar. 14/1 The complaint, which has just been filed, is as entertaining as any paper-back story book ever written.

1926 New Yorker 18 Sept. 28/2 He has always insisted a paper-back thriller ‘distracted my mind the night before’.

1957 Harper's Mag. Sept. 94/3 Is it not possible that he may come away reading nothing but paperback books, that he will have become attuned to never spending $4.50 on a hardback?

1991 Independent 16 Dec. 2/6 These paperback guides to winning at Nintendo promise to take some of the mystery..out of the games.

2002 Victorian July 30/2 The paperback tie-ins that invariably follow the latest Dickens or Trollope adaptation on television.

1921 Dial Jan. 231 Occasionally the writer forces the situation beyond the boundary of literary discretion, and indulges an almost paperback fling.

1967 S. Symons Combat Jrnl. ii. 22 A paperback culture has no tiger in its tank—must needs make one up.

1973 (title of film) Paperback hero.

1987 S. Brand Media Lab i. v. 80 If you could put a high-definition feature-length movie on a compact disk, you'd have the equivalent of a paperback movie.

1994 Q Aug. 40/2 Since the literal meaning of words was low on Morrison's song writing priorities at the time it would be unwise to take this kind of paperback psychology too far.

2003 Boston Herald (Nexis) 27 Feb. 43 She has blended traditional popular paperback styles,..mixing romance or mystery..with science fiction or fantasy.

1960 Times 19 Oct. 13/4 They will insist upon much higher royalties, appropriate to an edition that is to be both ‘soft’ and ‘hard’..: but this might make a mess of paper-back finance. So I advise the paper-backers..to have a word with the Minister of Education.

1993 Bookseller 30 Apr. 6 UK paperbackers are contractually bound not to issue their paperbacks into the UK before the hardback editions of the same titles have had a chance to prove themselves.

1960 N.Y. Times Mag. 5 June 2 Has Emily Post been paper-backed?

1963 Sunday Times 24 Nov. (Colour Suppl.) 23/2 They paperback their World of Art series at 18s.

1994 Guardian 11 Oct. ii. 12/4 A companion volume to Salvadori's 1980 classic Why Buildings Stand Up (also just paperbacked).