Conclusion
The Travellers’ Library, Phoenix Library and Albatross Modern Continental Library were discontinued during the Second World War, at a time when issues such as paper rationing and distribution problems affected all publishers. An attempt to revive them after the war did not succeed. This is surprising for two main reasons. First, the academic study of modernism was by then on the rise. And across the Atlantic, the Modern Library series was more popular than ever, despite the competition of paperback series. The conclusion answers the following questions: why did European series associated with modernism fail to find a public in the years that followed WW2? In what format did readers encounter modernist texts – at a time when modernism was institutionalised in the university system?