Betty Ballantine, grande dame of paperbacks, has died

It’s no exaggeration to say that the late Betty Ballantine should be revered as a hero by bookworms.

Ballantine, as you might deduce from her name, and her husband helped popularize inexpensive paperbacks, first by launching Penguin U.S.A., then Bantam Books and Ballantine Books.

Ballantine died February 12 at the age of ninety-nine, outliving her husband by nearly a quarter-century.

Learn more about her role in the paperback revolution and contributions to the authors at her imprints in the New York Times’s obituary.