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.
Under the Rainbow
Under the Rainbow
To those who saw Saltings first on a hot day in summer—when heat shimmered in the hollows—that churchyard, and those sheep, and the surrounding cottages with their flaming gardens, stood for ever as a picture of peaceful England.
Martin Richards, a dedicated, idealistic vicar, has been moved, for health reasons, from London to the idyllic village of Saltings, watched over by a dedicated housekeeper and surrounded by the beauties of the countryside. But his peace is disrupted when he takes in his newly-orphaned niece and nephew, and (far more reluctantly) his ghastly Aunt Connie. Then peace is dispelled altogether with the arrival of Judy Griffiths, the kind young woman hired to care for the children, who is seeking solace from a mysterious and difficult past. But Judy soon finds herself in trouble again, having triggered the jealousy of wealthy, widowed Lady Blacke, the attentions of the local schoolmaster, and the bitter vitriol of Aunt Connie. How these problems are resolved makes for an utterly delicious tale of romance and misadventure.
Under the Rainbow, first published in 1942, is the seventh of twelve charming, page-turning romances published under the pseudonym “Susan Scarlett” by none other than beloved children’s author and novelist Noel Streatfeild. Out of print for decades, they were rediscovered by Greyladies Books in the early 2010s, and Dean Street Press and Furrowed Middlebrow are delighted now to make all twelve available to a wider audience.
Praise
“A writer who shows a rich experience in her writing and a charm” Nottingham Journal