Bestseller - gestern und heute / Bestseller - Yesterday and Today

What is the meaning of a "bestseller" for the history of literature? How do we defi ne it in the fi rst place, and what consequences does the success on the book market have for the literary evaluation of a text? What is the relationship between quantity and quality? Many literary scholars shy away from doing research on "bestsellers", but the question regarding the formation of a literary canon i...