Peyton Place, published in 1956, has sold over 10,000,000 copies world-wide and remains the fourth biggest selling novel of all time. Its sequel, Return to Peyton Place, published in 1959, was a national best-seller for many, many months. Considered scandalous it its time of publication, Peyton Place, stirred controversy with its explicit - for the time - depictions of sex and sins in a small New England town. Today, the once shocking novel and its sequel seem tame, and are taught in college English courses as classics of their time, well-written and honest in the evocation of the passions, jealousies, and secrets of small-town America.