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.
The Fugitive (volume 6 of In Search of Lost Time)
The Fugitive (volume 6 of In Search of Lost Time)
The long-awaited penultimate volume–“the very summit of Proust’s art” (Slate)–in the acclaimed Penguin translation of Marcel Proust’s greatest work, in time for the 150th anniversary of his birth
“The greatest literary work of the twentieth century.” –The New York Times
A Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition
Peter Collier’s acclaimed translation of The Fugitive introduces a new generation of American readers to the literary riches of Marcel Proust. The sixth and penultimate volume in Penguin Classics’ superb new edition of In Search of Lost Time–the first completely new translation of Proust’s masterpiece since the 1920s–brings us a more comic and lucid prose than readers of English have previously been able to enjoy.
“Miss Albertine has left!” So begins The Fugitive, the second part of what is often referred to as “the Albertine cycle,” or books five and six of In Search of Lost Time. As Marcel struggles to endure and vanquish his loss, he ends up in an anguished search for the essential truth of the enigmatic Albertine (the titular “fugitive”), whose love affairs with other women provoke in him jealousy and a new understanding of sexuality. Finally, he lets go of her and begins to find himself, discovering his own long-lost inner sources of creativity.