Dope literature

From the TLS archive, a 1938 review of Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca:

The conventions of a story of this kind are not the conventions of the so-called realistic novel, and it would be absurd to reproach Miss du Maurier for her fine, careless rapture. In its kind “Rebecca” is extraordinarily bold and confident, eloquent and accomplished to a degree that merits genuine respect. Hundreds of novelists to-day try to write in a similar vein: the few who produce novels as readable as this are household names. It is fair, no doubt, to call this type of fiction “dope”. But it is no good pretending that everybody would read Tolstoy or Proust if there were no dope literature.

I read a lot of Daphne Du Maurier's novels when I was a teenager - I think the one that has most stayed with me is The House on the Strand - which in turn reminds me of another childhood favorite, Anya Seton's Green Darkness....