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.
Lolly Willowes [Dover edition]
Lolly Willowes [Dover edition]
"This is the witty, eerie, tender but firm life history of a middle-class Englishwoman who politely declines to make the expected connection with the opposite sex and becomes a witch instead." — John Updike
Forty-seven-year-old Lolly Willowes is a conventional maiden aunt, an unpaid companion and babysitter to her brothers' children. After years of submission to her controlling family, she develops a longing for the countryside and dark, wild places that impels her to flee London for a remote village. Lolly soon discovers that her new neighbors are a coven of bohemian witches and eventually encounters Satan himself — a genial country gentleman who's ready to make a pact.
The first-ever selection of the Book of the Month Club upon its 1926 publication, Lolly Willowes was a surprise international bestseller. This proto-feminist work has since been chosen as one of the Guardian's 100 Best Novels of All Time, and it remains a richly satirical novel that celebrates the joys of self-actualization.
"Revolutionary ... a subtle demand for women's power over their own lives." — Alison Lurie
"Remarkable ... pungent and satisfying." — Saturday Review
Reprint of a standard edition.