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.
Those Other Days
Those Other Days
Nineteen stories written by “the prince of storytellers” at the turn of the 20th century. These stories originally appeared in various newspapers and weekly periodicals and six of them were published in The Windsor Magazine. Following the success of Oppenheim’s legitimate short story collection, For the Queen, these uncollected stories were compiled in hardback by the owner of The Windsor, Ward, Lock & Company, without the author’s permission in 1912. Given the author’s blessing or not, these early stories show Oppenheim as a young author still flexing his talents, testing the market and finding his voice with tales of ghosts and secrets, psychic manifestations and spiritual forgiveness; romantic misunderstandings, Victorian mysteries and time-twisting intrigue.
Oppenheim went on to write over 150 romantic thrillers, including many character-related short story collections. Those Other Days, like For the Queen, is his only other collection of unrelated stories. But they are all united by Oppenheim’s fertile imagination and compelling, even poignant, story-telling.