Guy Thorne: C. Ranger Gull: Edwardian Tabloid Novelist and His Unseemly Brotherhood

by David Wilkinson

Cyril Arthur Edward Ranger Gull [1875-1923] has proved to be an emblematic 'Nineties decadent whose early works were published anonymously and banned from the circulating libraries. Compton Mackenzie tells us that those early novels created a scandal that compared with the 'four letter school' of the 1960s. In 1906 his books were removed from the shelves at Oxford University. He was not above pulling the odd scam. The publisher Grant Richards decided he was 'an odd, attractive and rather unprincipled little chap.' He was an alcoholic and a gambler who placed himself perilously close to Oscar Wilde. Two companies in which he was involved went into liquidation. Through his friendships he became embroiled in the sub rosa world of late Victorian pornography.

335 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

b. 1941 David Wilkinson, writer and occasional publisher, is the author of a number of biographical works. He runs an art gallery and second hand book store, The Book Gallery, in St. Ives, Cornwall and was for 20 years the associate editor of the Richard Aldington Newsletter.