Revived Writers
Fairly often a well-deserving writer is rediscovered by readers, publishers, or reviewers/critics. The neglected books are brought back into print, retrospective appreciations are written (Dawn Powell) or a sudden rush of affection overwhelms the writer late in life (Barbara Pym). Sometimes the writer’s works are whacked with the magic wand of Hollywood, and the writer becomes much more famous and widely read than in his or her mortality (Philip K. Dick).
Recently I was struck by the handsome editions that a British publisher, Hodder Books, brought out for Pamela Hansford Johnson’s novels. Johnson (1912-1981, CBE, FRSL) was a prolific and multi-talented writer who was the guest of many universities in the US and celebrated in her day. Her second husband, C.P. Snow, had an even higher profile as a writer bridging the sciences and the humanities and wrote successfully and abundantly, including an epic 11-volume series, Strangers and Brothers. Johnson is now back in print. Snow is out of print entirely in the US. Publishers — and booksellers — are mysterious in their giving and taking away. It pays to stay alert to what is revived.
On this page, beginning in the pandemic days of Spring 2020, we will hunt around for revived fiction and its writers. We begin with Johnson. I look forward to listing other authors I carry: Nancy Mitford, Georgette Heyer, Eugenia Price, Sylvia Townsend Warner, and others. (Why are all the names I am thinking of women writers? No idea.)
Enjoy! Experiment! And come back to check on new listings.
Ghosts and Gamblers: The Further Uncollected Stories of E. Phillips Oppenheim
Ghosts and Gamblers: The Further Uncollected Stories of E. Phillips Oppenheim
The Modern Prometheus is the story of two struggling artists, Francis and Marcia, thrown together by desperation and poverty in a Chelsea boardinghouse. After being forced to give up hope, Francis burns his manuscript, sells the last of his possessions and strikes out for the colonies. He cannot take Marcia and leaves her behind as he vows to find either riches or death. Ten years later, Francis returns as Sir Francis Kernham, fabulously wealthy and famous throughout England. He searches everywhere for Marcia, fearful of what she may have become, only to discover by chance that she is now Princess of Hohenmahn. Will they now find love and happiness together, or has time and truth forged bonds of a different sort?
The Reluctant Gambler gives us a new Oppenheim hero, the rakish and wealthy Andrew Tresholm. In these six never-before-reprinted stories, we see this curiously brave and moral adventurer mixing himself up in the problems of friends and acquaintances as he gambles on himself and others to overcome their personal tragedies.
We also offer 12 stories published in various newspapers from 1896 to 1916 but which have never before been collected into book format—stories of espionage, romance, adventure, and comedy—including a speech to his alma mater to round out the collection. All this plus editor Daniel Paul Morrison’s latest, and certainly his most definitive, bibliography of the many and varied works of E. Phillips Oppenheim, an absolute boon to collectors.