The Book of Forgotten Authors

by Christopher Fowler

'JOYOUS . . . READERS WILL LOVE THIS FASCINATING BOOK' CATHY RENTZENBRINK'A GODSEND WITH THE PRESENT SEASON APPROACHING' IRISH INDEPENDENT'THE PERFECT GIFT FOR A BOOK-OBSESSED FRIEND' STYLIST, 50 UNMISSABLE BOOKS FOR AUTUMN 2017'EXCELLENT . . . SHOULD BE READ BY ANYONE WHO LOVES BOOKS' EVENING STANDARDAbsence doesn't make the heart grow fonder. It makes people think you're dead.So begins Christopher Fowler's foray into the back catalogues and backstories of 99 authors who, once hugely popular, have all but disappeared from our shelves.Whether male or female, domestic or international, flash-in-the-pan or prolific, mega-seller or prize-winner - no author, it seems, can ever be fully immune from the fate of being forgotten. And Fowler, as well as remembering their careers, lifts the lid on their lives, and why they often stopped writing or disappeared from the public eye.These 99 journeys are punctuated by 12 short essays about faded including the now-vanished novels Walt Disney brought to the screen, the contemporary rivals of Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie who did not stand the test of time, and the women who introduced us to psychological suspense many decades before it conquered the world.This is a book about books and their authors. It is for book lovers, and is written by one who could not be a more enthusiastic, enlightening and entertaining guide.'A BIBLIOPHILE'S DREAM' FINANCIAL TIMES'WILL HAVE READERS SCURRYING INTO SECONDHAND BOOKSHOPS' GUARDIAN

Genres: Nonfiction, Books About Books, History, Biography, Essays, Literature, Reference

400 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 4, 2017

About the author

Librarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name

Christopher Fowler was an English writer known for his Bryant & May mystery series, featuring two Golden Age-style detectives navigating modern London. Over his career, he authored fifty novels and short story collections, along with screenplays, video games, graphic novels, and audio plays. His psychological thriller Little Boy Found was published under the pseudonym L.K. Fox.
Fowler's accolades include multiple British Fantasy Awards, the Last Laugh Award, the CWA Dagger in the Library, and the inaugural Green Carnation Award. He was inducted into the Detection Club in 2021. Beyond crime fiction, his works ranged from horror (Hell Train, Nyctophobia) to memoir (Paperboy, Film Freak). His column Invisible Ink explored forgotten authors, later compiled into The Book of Forgotten Authors.
Fowler lived between London and Barcelona with his husband, Peter Chapman.

Reviews

[mark monday · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very enjoyable as both a resource and a fun whirl through the mind of an ardent book-lover. Fowler is a highly successful author himself and one can see why. The man has skills; his conversational style makes his various points easy to agree with and he never comes across as hectoring. This should be read from start to finish, rather than skipping around authors, because he makes connecting points from one entry to the next: the book has a narrative, of sorts.

The collection focuses primarily on mystery and crime novels, with a good-sized helping of comedic authors specializing in absurdity as well as some British comic writers and artists. Understandable that fantasy, science fiction, and horror authors have mainly been left out, as this book would have been three times as long with that inclusion (and there are plenty of books out there that do the same for those genres). Despite his comments in the introduction, it is also pretty clear that Fowler is not a fan of science fiction in general (e.g. his entry on Richard Shaver) so I'm glad he didn't spend too much time on that genre, one I love. All that said, I was a big fan of his focus on women writers. Kudos!

1 star removed for his eyebrow-raising entry on Georgette Heyer. :( I'm sorry that the author had to deal with regularly seeing Heyer's books in his mother's secret collection when growing up, but that's certainly no reason for such an insulting and dismissive entry on this fabulous author.

1 star added back for his wonderfully warm entry on Polly Hope! :) This was a highlight of the book. I was quite moved by this story of finding a forgotten author who had been quite busy living her life, briefly entering that life and inspiring her to re-publish a novel, and then learning of her untimely passing.

I had some issues with his inclusion of certain authors who are far from forgotten: my beloved Georgette Heyer of course, but it is also odd that Cornell Woolrich, T.H. White, Baroness Orczy, Gustav Meyer/Meyrink, and for chrissakes Tom Robbins were all included. Could have given those spaces over to more obscurities. Personally I would have advocated for Rohan O'Grady, Richard Lortz, Gilbert Adair, Terry Andrews, Coleman Dowell, Leon Garfield, William Sansom, and Colin MacInnes.

My handwritten list of to-buy novels and stories inspired by this book took the form of about a dozen post-its on my kitchen table, each one filled with over a half-dozen or so names and titles. That's a lot of books that I now want to read! I've narrowed down my top interests to:

Kolymsky Heights by Lionel Davidson
The Sabres of Paradise by Lesley Branch
The Great Victorian Collection by Brian Moore
Doctors Wear Scarlet by Simon Raven
The Governor's Lady by Norman Collins
obscure comic Giant-Land by Richard Quittenton
Natural History by Joan Perucho
The Black Coats series by Paul Féval
(Kriminal | Fantomas | Judex)
The Wooden Overcoat by Pamela Branch ✔ 3 stars
The Snow Ball by Brigid Brophy
The Passion Flower Hotel by "Rosalind Erskine"
The Judge Dee Mysteries by Robert van Gulik
(esp. The Chinese Maze Murders)
Suspects by David Thomson
Here Comes a Candle by Fredric Brown
Black Water: The Book of Fantastic Literature & Black Water 2: More Tales of the Fantastic by Alberto Manguel
Crotchet Castle by Thomas Love Peacock
The Haunted House by Charles Dickens
The War of the Buttons by Louis Pergaud

In sum: despite my reservations, Fowler's enthusiasm for unearthing buried treasures is infectious. I'm grateful for all of the research and love displayed in this book.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

(4.5) A charming introduction to 99 more or less obscure writers. Each profile is a perfectly formed mini-biography with a survey of the author’s major work. In just two or three pages, Fowler is able to convey all a writer’s eccentricities and why their output is still worth remembering. It would be easy to quibble with some of his selections – I hardly think V.C. Andrews, Georgette Heyer and Barbara Pym are forgotten nowadays, for instance – but he usually has a good reason for highlighting someone, especially if there is interesting information about their legacy or posthumous reputation. There is a slight bias towards crime fiction, probably reflecting Fowler’s own interests (he’s the author of a long-running detective series), but everything from horror to faux-Tibetan spirituality is represented here.

I especially enjoyed the short essays on topics like nonsense writing, obscure Booker Prize winners, and the twin dangers of writing too much or too little. I also liked the handful of personal anecdotes: meeting Polly Hope in London and encouraging her to reissue her first book online at age 80 (it came with the dedication “To Chris, for finding me”); ordering a secondhand edition of Clifford Mills’s Where the Rainbow Ends and finding it was his own childhood copy, with his name inside the front cover; and finding Cornell Woolrich books “holding up a three-legged chair in the Yum Yum Thai takeaway in King’s Cross, London. The owner was happy to donate them to me for the price of a mee goreng.”


Favorite lines:

“[Margery] Allingham believed in the ‘Plum Pudding Principle’ – that every few pages the reader should be treated to a plum so that it’s not all stodge.”

“You can’t teach an author lightness of touch; it’s something innate, born from viewing the world with a sense of resigned amusement.”

“I have a low tolerance level for what Victoria Wood once christened the ‘interplanetary ming-mongs school of SF writing” [me too!]

“If you only rediscover one author from this selection of ninety-nine, you will have conferred upon them a kind of immortality.”

“Books have the power to calm, enlighten and energize, but it seems to me that of all the arts they are at the most risk. The easiest way to make reading effortless is to make books a habit, so that they become a retreat, a sanctuary, a call to arms.”

Best takedown: “[B]ack in 1970, students were prepared to read a book exploring the life philosophy of a seagull. Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull smashed the bestseller records. The slender square tome was to be found poking out of backpacks the world over. It concerns an anthropomorphic seagull that yearns to fly higher instead of just worrying about where its next whiting is coming from. Millions swallowed the inspirational Christian parable which, at 120 pages (heavily illustrated), took about twelve minutes to digest. It was so successful that it became a film consisting of shots of seagulls floating about to whiffly Neil Diamond songs, the overall effect of which was like lapsing into a coma caused by getting a paper-cut from a Hallmark card.” (from the essay “The Justly Forgotten Authors”)

Best single line: “Conceived out of wedlock in a cupboard, born in Greenwich in 1875, and raised through a complex set of circumstances in a theatrical troupe by his mother, [Edgar] Wallace [author of King Kong, etc.] ended up selling newspapers in Ludgate Circus at the age of eleven.”

A great fact: Thomas Nigel Kneale was the husband of Judith Kerr and father of Matthew Kneale

Books I’ll Be Looking Into:
Miss Hargreaves, Frank Baker
Don’t, Mr. Disraeli, Caryl Brahms
The Wooden Overcoat, Pamela Branch
The Furys five-novel cycle, James Hanley
Ruthless Rhymes, “Col. D. Streamer” [Harry Graham]
Logicomix
The Great Victorian Collection, Brian Moore
Consuming Passions: A History of English Food and Appetite, Philippa Pullar

[Jill H. · Rating 5 out of 5]

While I am reading two history books, I always like to read something lighter at bedtime. I read this book several years ago and loved it..............so I picked it up again for a wonderful reread. I liked it as much the second time as I did the first.

I adore Christopher Fowler's humorous Peculiar Crime Unit series but he has also written this delightful reference book about 99 authors who are, for the most part, forgotten. I put myself to a test to see how many I knew or had read and found that I only was familiar with 21 of the 99. I'm not half as well-read as I thought I was!

The book is divided into categories, a few of which are: Forgotten Rivals of Holmes and Agatha Christie; Queens of Suspense; Forgotten for Writing Too Much or Too Little; Lost in Translation; and Justly Forgotten Authors. Fowler gives a short biography of each author and discusses their books and why they have disappeared. His writing is as quirky and entertaining as one of novels and he has done an amazing amount of research, hunting down books that have long been out of print. It is no surprise that some of them have become collector's items while others might be found in a charity shop........or not at all.

Read this and it will send you in search of these intriguing lost authors. Recommended.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I first joined GR it was with the hope of gaining new ideas for reading material, especially for fiction. At the outset I had no thought of writing reviews or of having a worldwide network of GR Friends. I’m glad of course things have turned out the way they have, but Christopher Fowler’s compilation was still an ideal sort of book for me.

I understand the articles collated here were originally published separately in a UK newspaper. This makes the book super-easy to read as most of the individual entries are only 3 or 4 pages long.

It’s self-evident that a book of “forgotten” authors is going to focus on writers of an earlier time. Almost all the authors featured are deceased and those that aren’t are a good age, so this isn’t a book to consult if you prefer contemporary fiction. It concentrates heavily on authors who wrote in English, and I wasn’t far into the book before I gained the impression the author has a preference for suspense thrillers and detective novels. On checking his Wikipedia entry, I wasn’t surprised to find he writes in these genres himself. The writers featured are by no means limited to those genres though. There’s also a good mix of male and female authors.

Most GR members will have heard of a proportion of them. I had heard of 20 or so and have even read a few. I had to grimace at the inclusion of Sven Hassel, whose lurid WW2 novels were popular with my schoolfriends in the 1970s, though even at the time I thought his cast of characters seemed suspiciously similar to those in All Quiet on the Western Front. T.H.White also features, and although he is well-regarded by many I never took to his books. On the other hand, the compilation features Brian Moore, whose novel “Black Robe” is one of my favourites, and I think I’ll try another of his works that is mentioned here. There’s also a fun write-up for Arthur Mee, whose idiosyncratic Edwardian “encyclopaedias” are a fond memory of my own childhood.

I imagine most GR members would find something to interest them in this collection. I have made notes on a number of books that I didn’t know of but which I might now try. The articles themselves are also entertainingly written. I get the impression that some writers have been included as much for their interesting biography as for their writing.

Entertaining and informative. A solid four stars.

[Nancy Oakes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Warning: for truly serious readers who look beyond the NYT bestseller lists or the hottest book on the market, this book may just be deadly to your wallet and to the size of your tbr pile. Fortunately, I only bought three books mentioned in this one before I regained control of myself and started making a list of all of the others I wanted. That list is huge, but I couldn't help it. I even listed the books that have been long out of print just in case some publisher some day decides to return them to their rightful place among the reading public. Hint hint.

What started out as a column for The Independent called "Invisible Ink" is now a lovely collection of short essays about books, authors, and reading. Author Christopher Fowler (whose Bryant & May series has been entertaining me for years) begins his look at forgotten authors with the question of why so many good authors have been forgotten, a question I ask myself on a constant basis, and then follows up this question with 98 short essays that are filled with names of both authors and their work. Some I knew and some I did not, but I was beyond delighted to find several obscure writers from my own shelves in this book -- Paul Feval, R. Austin Freeman, and Marghanita Laski to name only a few. He also touches on his own love of reading, on critics and popular reaction to some of the books here, as well as many other topics which I consider to be of great interest, including movie adaptations and plays. There's just so much to enjoy about this book if, like me, you're interested in obscure, unknown, or forgotten authors, and I really picked up on the author's deep love and passion for reading right away. That makes this author a kindred spirit -- of course I'm going to love this book!

I was a bit blue when I'd finished the last page because greedy person I am, I wanted more and didn't want it to be over, but then I realized that I'd probably be returning to this book often. It is most definitely a must have in the home libraries of passionate readers who enjoy old books and who are always on the lookout to rediscover authors of yesteryear. It may not appeal to a general audience, but it certainly appeals to me.

[Karl]

99 authors who have faded from fashion, supplemented by a dozen short essays.

[Darya Silman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do you want to read about the authors whose books went out of print and became difficult, if not impossible, to find? Try The Book of Forgotten Authors by Christopher Fowler. What hides under the cover is 99 authors, some squeezed into one chapter, effortless conversational style, and, logically, lots of new information to think about. The author constantly ruminates about why some authors got lost in oblivion (for example, many female crime fiction writers during Agatha Christie's times) while others were so popular that they printed hundreds of books - to be forgotten too. For those in England, the book can also be a guide around small bookshops that sell used books.

I have never worked in a library business, so I don't know how the library management chooses what books to order. To an outsider like me, the choice looks random. I remember one presumably theological book I couldn't read after the first pages: it discussed phallic symbols in the painting 'Last Supper.' Anyway, I picked up The Book of Forgotten Authors two months ago solely because of its title. The book spent one month on my shelf at home. I had been reading and taking notes for another month. And when I was ready to write my review, I discovered the author had died this March. In the grand scheme of things, there is little possibility that these two events - the author's death in London and me accidentally picking up his book in Estonia - are correlated in some entangled, multi-dimensional way. Yet, despite all odds, I do feel all people are interconnected, and butterfly's wings are capable of producing a tornado.

Please read the book as a tribute to its author.

[Fiona MacDonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderfully witty forage into the history and lives of 99 authors that most people have never heard of. As such an obsessively avid reader, I was amazed that there were a lot of authors in the suspense field that looked amazing reads that were new to me. I've got so many more authors and books to add to my overflowing TBR thanks to this book. Christopher Fowler is very easy to read and overall is extremely respectful when discussing these writers. My favourite vignettes are when he sets out to track down a copy of his favourite childhood book, only to discover his own copy with his name in it in a small bookshop in Kent. And secondly, he sets out to track down an author who has fallen off the face of the earth and ends up round at her house for tea.
A great book to read in a couple of sittings as I did, or to dip into for a new author.

[Alan (on December semi-hiatus) Teder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Forgotten by Many but not Everyone
Review of the riverrun Kindle eBook edition (October 5, 2017) published simultaneously with the riverrun hardcover original.

It was a delight to read these short tales of 99 "forgotten" authors, a dozen or so of which I had read and enjoyed previously. My thanks to GR friends Darya Silman's and Liam Ostermann's reviews which made for this discovery. This was a treasure trove of trivia for fans of books about books, books about authors and books adapted for other media.

Even if I had not read the specific novels, I was surprised at the number of authors and books which I knew from their movie, television, or stage adaptations. Many of the authors featured had their stories adapted by Alfred Hitchcock for instance.

I've copy/pasted the Table of Contents into the Trivia section below so you can discover how many of these "forgotten" authors you may actually know. I've only built in links for the ones that I know from my own previous and current reading. Gladys Mitchell and her Mrs. Bradley novels were the first of my "unknowns" that I decided to investigate.

The author Christopher Fowler (1953-2023) was himself the author of 50 books, primarily the 18 novels of the Bryant & May (2003-2021) series of crime thrillers.

Trivia and Some Links
The following is the Table of Contents for the book with the addition of authors being numbered 1 to 99 and the interchapter essays I to XI.
Why Are Good Authors Forgotten?
1 Margery Allingham (1904-1966) English author who wrote the Albert Campion series of 21 detective novels 1929 to 1970. Also some collections of Albert Campion short stories.
2 Virginia Andrews (1923-1986), better known as V.C. Andrews, American author best known for Flowers in the Attic (1979), but all books published after 1988 were ghost-written by Andrew Neiderman.
3 Charlotte Armstrong
4 Frank Baker
5 R. M. Ballantyne
6 Alexander Baron
7 Peter Barnes
8 Lesley Blanch
9 Kyril Bonfiglioli
I. The Forgotten Disney Connection
10 Ernest Bornemann
11 Pierre Boulle (1912-1994) French author who wrote the novels The Bridge Over the River Kwai (1952) and Planet of the Apes (1963), best known now for their movie adaptations.
12 Mary Elizabeth Braddon
13 Caryl Brahms
14 Pamela Branch
15 Brigid Brophy
16 Thomas Burke
17 Dino Buzzati
18 Patricia Carlon
19 Barbara Comyns Carr
II The Forgotten (pre-Tarantino) Pulp Fiction
20 John Dickson Carr (1906-1977), who also used the pseudonyms Carter Dickson & Carr Dickson, American born, but later English author, considered the master of the "locked room" mystery, especially for The Three Coffins (1935) and the rest of the Dr. Gideon Fell series of 23 novels 1932-1967.
21 Leslie Charteris (1907-1993), Chinese-English author, known for The Saint (1928-1983) series of 51 novels, probably best known through the TV-adaptations starring Roger Moore.
22 John Christopher
23 John Collier
24 Norman Collins
25 Richard Condon (1915-1996), American author, best known through the movie adaptations of The Manchurian Candidate (1959) & Prizzi's Honor (1982). There are actually 4 books in the Prizzi family saga (1982-1994) but no one at GR has bothered to collect them into a series Listopia.
26 Edmund Crispin
27 E. M. Delafield
28 Patrick Dennis
29 Raymond Durgnat
III The Forgotten Rivals of Holmes, Bond and Miss Marple
30 Rosalind Erskine
31 Dr Christopher Evans
32 Jack Finney
33 Ronald Firbank
34 Peter Fleming (1907-1971), did you know that the brother of James Bond creator Ian Fleming was a travel writer and novelist?
35 Lucille Fletcher
36 R. Austin Freeman
37 Michael Green
38 Peter Van Greenaway
IV The Forgotten Books of Charles Dickens
39 Robert Van Gulik
40 Thomas Guthrie
41 Charles Hamilton
42 James Hanley
43 Sven Hassel
44 A. P. Herbert
45 Georgette Heyer
46 Eleanor Hibbert
47 Harry Hodge
48 Sheila Hodgetts
V The Forgotten Queens of Suspense
49 Polly Hope
50 Richard Hughes
51 Graham Joyce
52 Robert Klane
53 Thomas Nigel Kneale
54 Ronald Knox (1888-1957), English priest and author, best known for his Ten Rules for Detective Fiction.
55 Gavin Lambert
56 George Langelaan
VI The Forgotten Nonsense Writers
57 Noel Langley
58 Marghanita Laski
59 Michael McDowell
60 John McGlashan
61 Julian Maclaren-Ross
62 Richard Marsh
63 Arthur Mee
64 Gustav Meyer
65 Margaret Millar
VII The Forgotten Booker Authors
66 Clifford Mills
67 Gladys Mitchell (1901-1983) English author of the 66 books of the Mrs. Bradley (1929-1984) series of crime mysteries.
68 Brian Moore (1921-1999), Northern Irish, later Canadian & American author whom I know from his novel Black Robe (1985) and its later Canadian movie adaptation (1991) for which he wrote the screenplay.
69 J. B. Morton
70 Peter Nichols
71 Bill Naughton
72 Emma Orczy, best known as Emmuska Orczy aka Baroness Orczy (1865-1947), the creator of the Scarlet Pimpernel (1905-1940) series of novels and also the early female detective Lady Molly Of Scotland Yard (1910).
73 Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett
74 Thomas Love Peacock
VIII Forgotten For Writing Too Little – and Too Much
75 Joyce Porter
76 David Pownall
77 Philippa Pullar
78 Barbara Pym
79 Richard Quittenton
80 T. Lobsang Rampa
81 Simon Raven
82 Maurice Richardson
IX The Rediscovered Forgotten Authors
83 Arnold Ridley
84 Tom Robbins (1932-), American author, best known for the 1993 movie adaptation of his novel Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1976).
85 Cynthia Propper Seton
86 Idries Shah
87 Richard Shaver
88 Matthew Phipps Shiel
89 Peter Tinniswood
X Lost In Translation: The Forgotten World Authors
90 Thomas Tryon
91 Arthur Upfield
92 Edgar Wallace (1875-1932), very prolific English author, but probably now best known as the original story writer for the movie King Kong (1933).
93 James Redding Ware
94 Keith Waterhouse
95 Winifred Watson
XI The Justly Forgotten Authors
96 Dennis Wheatley (1897-1977), English thriller and occult writer. I haven't read very much of Wheatley, but I remembered his name from the anthology The Satanists (1971) which I read in my pre-GR days.
97 T. H. White (1906-1964), English author especially known for The Once and Future King Camelot (1967 movie tie-in edition of the 1958 original). This is actually a series of 4 (in the pre-1977 collections) or 5 (in the post-1977 collections which include The Book of Merlyn (1977)) shorter novels, each originally published separately in The Once and Future King (1938-1977) series.
98 Kathleen Winsor
99 Cornell Woolrich
The Last Word
Acknowledgements

[Diane Barnes]

I'm not going to rate this book because I am not the target audience for it. I love reading forgotten authors and read quite a few, but Fowler's choices were mostly writers of sci-fi, noir, the supernatural, weird humor, and some downright nut jobs, which he admits himself. Not that there's anything wrong with those genres, just not for me.

[Stace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book reviewed by Stacey on www.whisperingstories.com

The Book of Forgotten Authors, is a title that couldn’t be more fitting as this book is just that. It is filled to the brim with 99 authors that Christopher Fowler deems to have been forgotten by readers.

The book has been separated into twelve different sections, with a chapter in between regarding the following subjects:-
– Why are good authors forgotten?
– The Forgotten Disney Connection
– The Forgotten (pre-Tarantino) Pulp Fiction
– The Forgotten rivals of Holmes, Bond and Miss Marple
– The Forgotten Books of Charles Dickens
– The Forgotten Queens of suspense
– The Forgotten Nonsense Writers
– The Forgotten Booker Winners
– Forgotten for Writing Too Little and Too Much
– The Rediscovered Forgotten Authors
– Lost in Translation: The Forgotten World Authors
– The Justly Forgotten Authors

Some of the authors in the book that are deemed ‘forgotten’ you may actually be familiar with, whilst others you may never have heard of before, but you may recognise the names of their books, or even the movie adaptations of them.

An example is Pierre Boulle – Some may have never heard of him before, but I bet a few of you have heard of the film ‘Bridge Over the River Kwai’, and I suppose more famously ‘Planet of the Apes’. Both were his writing.

What about Arnold Ridley? For those over a certain age, and in the UK, you may know him better as Private Godfrey from the Dad’s Army TV series. However in his younger years he wrote many plays, including ‘The Ghost Train’ starring Arthur Askey.

Each of the 99 authors are given a small biography, information on their life, their books and why Christopher Fowler believes that they have been forgotten.

The book is quite addictive and I was surprised at how much I became hooked by the authors. I was fully invested in the information provided and loved learning about each of them, especially those I’d never even heard of before.

In someways I actually found myself feeling sorry for them. After all that time, effort and dedication it took to write the book(s) that they hoped people wanted to read, and when first published people did read them, yet years/generations later, a lot of people don’t even know who they are/were, or the names of their books.

Christopher Fowler has opened my eyes to a diverse arrangement of authors whose work I will have to look out for.

[Cathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Find all my book reviews plus author interviews, guest posts and book extracts on my blog: https://whatcathyreadnext.wordpress.com/

Reading The Book of Forgotten Authors is like browsing in the best second-hand bookshop in the world. That’s second-hand bookshop, mind – not antiquarian bookshop – because the works of the authors featured in Christopher Fowler’s hugely entertaining book are the sort you’d most likely find on the bargain shelf or in a cupboard box near the door.

From (too) much time spent in said second-hand bookshops over the years, I pride myself on having a good knowledge of authors and confidently expected to recognise most of the names mentioned. I was wrong. Over 80% were completely unknown to me and of the rest, some only sparked recognition once I’d read their entry and the titles of some of their books. I confess to feeling a little thrill of pride on the few occasions a book was mentioned that resides somewhere on the many bookshelves in our house. Yes, I’m talking about you Richard Hughes (In Hazard, A High Wind in Jamaica).

There were some authors whose inclusion frankly surprised me: Denis Wheatley, Barbara Pym, Marjory Allingham, Georgette Heyer, Winifred Watson. However, when I thought about it further, they may have name recognition but does anyone still buy, borrow or read their books? Which, surely, is Christopher Fowler’s main argument. And, am I the best person to judge? After all, I’m lucky enough to be part of the book blogging community containing some of the best read people on the planet.

The author clearly has an eclectic and esoteric taste in books and, despite his best efforts, some of the authors seem justifiably forgotten to me. I only jotted down a handful of titles to look out for during my next foray into a second-hand bookshop. However, even if the books don’t sound appealing (and, on occasions, the authors likewise), the joy of this book is the wit and humour of each bookish vignette. For those of us who occasionally struggle to write reviews, the author provides an object lesson in conciseness, managing to summarise books in a single sentence and an author’s life story in a few pages.

So why do authors become forgotten? If I may attempt to emulate the author’s brevity, here are my thoughts in 9.9 (rounded up to 10) bullet points:
•They wrote too much
•They wrote too little
•They wrote in an unpopular genre or format
•They died
•Their books went out of print
•They were usurped by the fame of their character
•Their book became a more famous film, play, musical
•They were overshadowed by another contemporaneous author
•They wrote under many pseudonyms
•They wrote ‘challenging’ books

To some extent, The Book of Forgotten Authors looks back to an age of traditional publishing when there were few alternative avenues for authors to publicise their books. Today, with the advent of independently published and self-published books, the appearance of new genres (Young Adult, New Adult, etc) and the sheer explosion in the number of titles available, it’s interesting to wonder who the ‘forgotten authors’ of tomorrow will be.

The Book of Forgotten Authors is a treat for bibliophiles and would make a fantastic addition to any book lover’s Christmas present list. It’s ideal for dipping in and out of, using as a reference guide or as a source of inspiration for the bookish equivalent of the jaded palate. I can imagine it triggering many conversations starting with, “Listen to this….” and attracting curious glances at the reader due to its laugh out loud moments. Speaking of the latter, here are a few of my favourites:

•[On Dan Brown] ‘He makes readers turn pages, and he’s fun to read, albeit in the same way that you’d watch a viral video of a drunk Russian falling over a railing.’
•[On R. M. Ballantyne] ‘What drew the Scots to literary tropicana? Did they just enjoy reading books where nobody wore a jumper?’
•[On The Swiss Family Robinson] ‘This chronicle of survival against pirates, wild animals and the elements went on to become a beloved classic and the most memorable thing about Switzerland except Toblerones and euthanasia…’
•[On Baroness Orczy, author of The Scarlet Pimpernel] ‘More than a dozen sequels followed, and with the proceeds the Baroness was able to buy an estate in Monte Carlo. As you would.’

I received an advance proof copy courtesy of Anne Cater at Random Things Through My Letterbox and publishers, riverrun, in return for an honest review. (4.5 stars)

[Melanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did enjoy this, 99 authors each described over a couple of pages, some highlights of their work and some musings as to why they were forgotten. Now, quite a few of the authors I have read, mainly the Golden Age mystery writers but a few were new to me. My TBR grew. It's the kind of book to have sitting next to your seat on the sofa and read a short bit while the tea is brewing.

[Diane Challenor · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Book of Forgotten Authors is a book about books, and Books About Books is one of my favourite genres. I have the hardback edition, and when I’ve finished reading it, it will take up one book space on my bookshelf. My bookshelf space is precious, and limited; reserved for “special” books only. Twelve spaces on my shelves are taken by Books About Books, and they sit there because I’ll dive into their pages occasionally, over the years, to reacquaint myself with their gems.

There is one thing that is very problematic about this book, that is, when it comes to Books about Books, it’s the fact that they encourage you to add more books to one’s To Be Read List. My To Be Read List is enormous, and it would take several life-times to actually read the books listed. But, hey, that’s part of the fun.

Sometimes I think I enjoy reading book descriptions and bio’s about authors, as much as I enjoy reading the books, and that is why, for me, this book is a great read. It’s intriguing and it leads me down fascinating pathways.

Listed below are some of the books I’ve added to my To Be Read List as a direct result of reading Christopher Fowler’s book:


When Last I Died

The Jacob Street Mystery

Vermilion

The Chinese Maze

Full Dark House

The Moving Toyshop

Don't Point that Thing at Me

The Perfect Murder

The Statement

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is another quirky book from the late Christopher Fowler - this time a collection of 99 authors who for better or worse have dropped out of popular print. Now I will start by saying that this statement is not entirely true - since I do know some of those authors are having some if not all of their work re-instated and re-published (for example in the British Libraries Tales of the Weird and the Classic Crime series)

However I love the style of Christopher Fowler and his rather irreverent approach to describing things he has a sense of fun and humour when conveying some of the most serious and of topics. He has the ability to see the lighter side without patronising or being condescending, you want to laugh with him not at him (or at anyone else for that matter).,

So yes this is a book to dip in and out of - as each author has only a few pages dedicated to them but it is enough to paint a picture and give you an understanding of who is being presented - there are certainly a number of authors I will want to go and read more about and while I am at it may be revisit some of Mr Fowlers work too.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book in Fowlers' engaging style, great if one is looking for new reads. What surprised me was how many are already on the shelves for example Kyril Bonfiglioni is complete in my library.

Highly recommended.

[Becky · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interesting collection of 99 authors who deserve to be more well known. In all fairness I have read and loved a fair few of these, but then I have the good fortune to be a Waterstones bookseller. Several of the authors included have featured in the book of the month/rediscovered classic lists in the time since I have worked for Waterstones, and I think we have James Daunt to thank for that. I kept expecting Fowler to mention this fact, as Waterstones has previously championed Lionel Davidson, Barbara Comyns, Kyril Bonfiglioni among others listed here, but at no point did he highlight this link although he did mention the role booksellers have in shaping the tastes of readers. Actually he seemed rather sniffy about the role booksellers play, so maybe we need to work harder at removing the Laurence Cosse style image of booksellers as book snobs!
There are some absolute gems here, and thanks to some of the wonderful smaller imprints and publishers out there many of these are now coming back into print and back to the fore. This has certainly given me a push towards picking up a few of these authors who I may have been aware of but have never read.
This is very much personal look at these authors and Fowler makes no bones about including highly personal views about some of them. Because of this not everyone is going to agree with all of his choices or with all of conclusions. Working in a reasonably sized bookshop it had certainly never occured to me that some of these authors were currently 'forgotten'. Stefan Zweig and Hans Fallada for example, while they are certainly not household names, are well represented on bookshop shelves, have had films inspired by or based on their most famous works; and thanks to the efforts of Pushkin Press, Maclehose and Penguin have had some gorgeous new editions of their works. However getting these names out to a new audience is always a good idea, so I applaud their inclusion.
Obviously this is a bookish book for book people, but it is a joy to read and I hope that it will be picked up by lots of people as we head towards the Christmas gift buying season.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This stumbles out of the starting block as the alphabet trips up Fowler; the first few names haven't been forgotten even though it would be terrific if one had been (V.C. Andrews). But then he hits his stride with the expected mix of unforgotten, forgotten, and never known authors. This book didn't achieve its purpose for me as the snippets didn't amount to enough of a recommendation for me to walk away with a list; just the same, the whole evolves into a literary appreciation which is engaging. It's given me something to think about as I assess dated and period authors.

[Jackie Law · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Book of Forgotten Authors, by Christopher Fowler, is a book for bibliophiles. It offers the reader details and anecdotes on ninety-nine authors who were once hugely popular and are now no longer in print. It is a very personal selection. The author admits that some of those chosen produced work that was predictable and not particularly well written, yet it has a charm that he finds appealing. Others he dismisses. Of Georgette Heyer and Eleanor Hibbert he opines that they wrote novels packaged in

“the kind of pastel covers no man would ever pick up.”

Really?

Each author listed is necessarily given just a few pages. Although superficial this is enough to provide a flavour of why they became popular before sinking into obscurity. Interspersed with the listings are commentaries such as ‘The Forgotten Books of Charles Dickens’ and ‘The Forgotten Booker Winners’. Although esoteric in places these make for interesting reading.

From some of the quotes provided I would suggest many of these authors deserve to stay forgotten, yet this reaction demonstrates just how personal individual reading experiences can be. In talking of the suspense writer Charlotte Armstrong:

“sometimes you want to wring the necks of her protagonists for picking the one option that will get them into deeper trouble. But hey, bad choices make good stories.”

I’m not sure that I agree.

The book is written with a deft and humorous touch. It is also moving in places. The chapter on Polly Hope was a particular favourite.

It is not so much the quality of the literature produced by these forgotten authors as their passing popularity that warrants their inclusion. Tastes change over time as do readers’ offence radars; authors can be sidelined when their evocative voice grates modern sensibilities.

I did not always agree with the conclusions the author reaches. The Forgotten Queens of Suspense opens with

“Ignored, underrated, overlooked or taken for granted, the women who wrote popular fiction for a living were often simply grateful to be published at all.”

This sounded familiar. The author is more generous suggesting

“Today women read more than men, and female authors have finally been accorded the prestige they always deserved.”

If only this were truly the case.

The output of many of the authors listed was prodigious, especially compared to current expectations. Like today some was also abtruse. Thomas Love Peacock is described as an acquired taste, seemingly for good reason. In writing of his tome Nightmare Abbey:

“it seems best to stumble from one page to the next and merely enjoy the juxtaposition of words”

“the book doesn’t so much end as stop. My paperback version is so old that some of the pages fell out, and it didn’t feel entirely necessary to put them back in the right order.”

Do authors such as this deserve a reprint?

There are scathing comments about readers who are described as ‘intellectually inert’. As an example, the author clearly dislikes the once popular little book, Jonathan Livingston Seagull. When a teenager I found this uplifting. Perhaps my more jaded, aged eye would not agree but at the time of reading it did its job and connected.

The author writes kinder words on the renowned Dan Brown:

“The real sin of bad writing is being boring, and Mr Brown is certainly never that.”

Well, he bored me.

Of course, agreeing with the author’s point of view is not the point. What this book offers is a window into the vagaries of the publishing world and its readership, the changing tastes and fickle loyalties. It is packaged in a way that makes it perfect for dipping into and refering back to over time.

I welcomed the insights into the ever evolving literary world, its discoveries and appropriations, pretensions and fads. So much has changed and yet much remains the same. As a great author, who has not been forgotten, once wrote: a man is not dead while his name is still spoken. For these ninety-nine, Mr Fowler could be a lifesaver.

My copy of this book was provided gratis by the author, riverrun.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fabulous idea wonderfully executed! I started this book in trepidation, as I have been whittling away at an already very long to-be-read list and really wasn't looking to add more to it! However, I love Christopher Fowler's conversational style of writing and his wonderful wit and thoroughly enjoy his Bryant & May: Peculiar Crimes Unit Series and the title of this book piqued my curiosity.

Favorite quotes:

"the life of a book really begins when a reader turns to the first page. The moment this happens, its fate is out of its creator's hands."

"Second-hand bookshops are best visited alone and in the rain."

"Life is not a box of chocolates, it's a weathered old paperback, and you never know what you're going to find in it."

I have now added the following titles to my to-be-read, or to review lists:

1. A Fine Romance by Cynthia Propper Seton
2. The crime at Black Dudley by Margery Allingham
3. Miss Hargreaves by Frank Baker
4. The Bottle Imp by Robert Louis Stevenson
5. Some Tame Gazelle by Barbara Pym
6. Kolymsky Heights by Lionel Davidson
7. Troubles by J. G. Farrell
8. Consuming Passions: A History of English Food and Appetite by Philippa Pullar
9. The Wooden Overcoat by Pamela Branch

[K.J. Charles]

A vastly enjoyable collection of notes on 99 forgotten authors. For a given value of 'forgotten'--Fowler includes Georgette Heyer, who's never been out of print and is getting a movie, and some early Booker winners as well as Gladys Mitchell--but this sort of book is always going to be personal, and I hadn't heard of the vast majority.

It's an interesting exercise in loads of ways--some are hugely popular authors who disappeared without trace, others had a single book. Where possible Fowler gives biographical details, some of which are fascinating and frequently deeply bizarre. And his mordant sense of humour is used to full effect; this is laugh out loud stuff, great fun even without a clue who the author is.

His memoir, Across Canada to the Klondyke, was published after his death and is mercifully lost.

He has often been described as "a cult waiting to be discovered." At least, that's what I think they said.

My Kobo is littered with highlights of books I want to go chase up now, which is really the result you'd want. Highly recommended for book lovers of all sorts.

[Kristīne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grāmata vairākkārtējai lasīšanai - nožēloju, ka jau no sākuma neliku grāmatzīmes pie interesantākajiem autoriem, kurus pēc tam uzmeklēt lietoto grāmatu plašumos. Bija prieks lasīt, ka dažas grāmatas jau ir manā kolekcijā. Saraksts, protams, ļoti anglo-amerikāņu mērcē, bet bija arī atsevišķas pasauli aptverošas esejas.

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this book, the author identifies 99 (and more) authors who, for various reasons, have 'slipped under the radar' with the general reading public - for each author there is a very short biography and titles with brief descriptions of the most important books they have written. There are also a few sections titled, for example, The Forgotten Queens of Suspense, The Forgotten Booker Authors and the Forgotten Rivals of Holmes, Bond and Miss Marple which highlight a number of authors more briefly. The book also provided information that I wasn't aware of - such as the same author who wrote Bridge on the River Kwai also wrote The Planet of the Apes and many of these 'forgotten' authors wrote books that have faded out of print but are renowned for the films they spawned. A few of the authors I did recognise, most I did not but many sounded like the type of books I would like to read - the result being that I have added 43 authors to my 'look for' list and I have already bought, downloaded or requested from the library about a dozen books - as if I didn't have enough on my shelves, kindle and TBR lists, so thanks for that Christopher!! Seriously though, like joining my reading group several years ago now, this is only going to serve to broaden my reading, which can only be a good thing. This book is so good that, having read a copy borrowed from the library, I will now be buying a copy for future reference (and in case I lose my scribbled lists from the first reading). Definitely recommended for all keen readers of any genre - 10/10.

[Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now wasn't this fun?

Christopher Fowler takes his English eye to the world of lost writers---a clever look at authors who wrote one great novel or who wrote oodles or novels, authors who were once highly acclaimed but are not now, authors who wrote a brilliant novel that was overlooked.

It's a delightful read, stuffed with names of books and authors you will want to scribble down, names of books and authors you will spend many, many hours browsing the bookshelves of old bookshops in search of (probably uselessly, but, still, a wonderful time).

Our guide is charming, too, and he's done the research on these folks, and if he opinionated, at least he's also well-read and fun. There were lots of references I didn't know (I'm American, and most of the authors are English after all) but it's a fun ride anyway. I don't think you will find a quirkier collection of writers anywhere.

[Jaksen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book about 99 writers who were once popular, or well-read, and now are not.

I'd read a few of them: Tom Tryon, Pierre Boulle, Margery Allingham, Charlotte Armstrong, Victoria Holt, John Dickson Carr, EM Delafield and Jack Finney. The last two I really liked and own some of her, and his books.

Each 'essay' is only one-three pages long, and I read several each day over the course of a week. Interesting to sit down and get a quick, brief background on a writer, some titles they've written, and then think to myself, hey, I want to READ that. But sad at times, to know so many good writers have been forgotten. (And a few not-so-good as some popular writers weren't really all that great.) The selections here are mainly English, or UK writers, with a few from the US and other areas thrown in.

And the comments about cruising through used-book stores, also great. One never knows what one might find there.

Anyhow, kind of a weird review from me, but I am happy I own this book. I intend to find a few of these unknowns (to me) and try them out, and RE-READ Delafield; she's that good.

Correction: I OWN the book; I did not win it. :/

Four stars

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful book, it builds on and expands some of what he covered in his earlier book 'Invisible Ink: How 100 Great Authors Disappeared' though there is inevitable some overlap and repetition, but there are also new authors and more discursive essays around themes. If I had to close I would take the earlier volume if only because it is a more straight forward list of authors. But the best solution is to read both, the duplications in this volume do not distract from its new and up-dated information.

For those of us who were young in the 1980s there is a lot of remembering to found amongst these authors and for me the confirmation that there are some things that have definitely gone to the dogs - you only need read Fowler's brilliant description of Peter Nichols play Poppy which played in London's West End (our Broadway):

'(it)...reimagined the Chinese Opium Wars in the form of a Christmas pantomime complete with panto cow, dame and criss-crossed principal boy. At one point the audience is encouraged to rise and join in a sing-a-long about the appalling behaviour of British troops, while Dich Whittington's sister ends up a junkie...'

It is actually shocking to remember that once theatre wasn't all musicals based on Disney cartoons. Just in case you are worried there is only one other exclusive playwright who is mentioned - the brilliant Peter Barnes whose deeply moral but totally shocking comedy 'Laughter!' is about a group of back office workers providing the paperwork for crematorium chimneys at Auschwitz who are forced to realize their complicity - again I am sorry we don't have theatre like that anymore - we need it more then ever.

But mostly this is a book about authors and it is brilliant in the books and authors it resurrects and in the way it makes you consider the transience of some many good books.

[Karen Mace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this as part of non-fiction November and it was an absolute delight and fountain of information! Loved reading about a variety of authors - many I'd never heard of before - and this is interestingly set out in small chapters dedicated to each of the authors that Christopher Fowler features, with looks at their lives and the books that they wrote that made them famous and what happened to them afterwards. Many of the authors had rather colourful personal lives too so that made for some fascinating reading, and I now have a long list of new books and authors to look for when I'm out book shopping!

As well as the amount of research taken it is also written with great humour and there are some lovely moments of histories and opinions to make you laugh - and a few revelations to leave you shocked as well!

A perfect read for all bookworms and a great non-fiction read!

[Chris Cox, a librarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I played a little game with Mr. Fowler's book.
I'd read about the author sections in the book and do a quick look at
the same author listings on Goodreads. (Thanks, Goodreads! Some of them really are forgotten!)

The listing of authors included ones I've read (Pierre Boulle, Tom Robbins, Emma Orczy)
Authors I'm somewhat familiar with (Tom Tyron, Richard Condon, Edgar Wallace)
Authors that have written things I'm familiar with but didn't know who the author was
(I have Vertigo by Boileau-Narcejac already cued up to read next)
And authors I'm not familiar with (Frankly, most of them)

I enjoyed reading the briefs about them and it didn't bother me too much that the writers listed were skewed to a high percentage of British ones.

[Lea · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Book of Forgotten Authors is a compilation of articles (originally published by the Independent) about "forgotten" authors, their lives (often very eccentric) and their works (once hugely popular, now obscure for a variety of reasons). If you like reading about that sort of thing (and I do), this is a real gem. I honestly lost count of how many books I added to my 'to-read' list because of this book. The sense of humour of the author is great, and you can easily dip in and out of this volume, or read it out of order.

I can't say exactly whether Fowler is really recommending that we rediscover ALL of these authors, as some of them seem more like curiosities and sound justly forgotten to me (especially the ones he points out were racist). At the same time, there are a LOT of good authors in the mix. I was surprised to know a respectable number of them. I read quite a bit, and I am a Persephone books fan, so that has something to do with it, but maybe some of the authors included aren't actually forgotten at all, especially the genre authors. Is there any fantasy reader who hasn't heard of T.H. White? Is there a romance reader who hasn't heard of Georgette Heyer?

Speaking of her, the star I deducted from this book is because of her entry. I am a huge Heyer fan and Fowler clearly didn't get her at all. It's fine, not everyone has to like everything. But the way he describes her books bears NO RESEMBLANCE to her actual work, and is in fact very condescending. I'd be surprised if anyone decided to pick up her books after his scathing and wholly inaccurate article.

Aside from my Heyer gripe, I think this book is very delightful and is essential to readers looking out to discover good authors outside of the newest best-seller lists. It also makes for some great discussions!

[Kirsty · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Guardian promises that Christopher Fowler's The Book of Forgotten Authors is 'a bibliophile's treat', and Stylist calls it 'the perfect guide to finding your next reading obsession'.  I spotted the paperback edition, which has been expanded and updated, in the library, and could not resist adding it to the small pile of tomes already in my arms.  The book appealed to me, as I love anything which brings my attention to authors whom I have not before considered, or have never even heard of.

The Book of Forgotten Authors includes '99 forgotten authors, their forgotten books, and their unforgettable stories.'  It has been split into separate sections, each of which encompasses around ten different authors, with a common theme in mind.  These categories include 'The Forgotten Queens of Suspense', 'The Forgotten Booker Authors', and 'Forgotten for Writing Too Little - and Too Much'.  The connections which Fowler makes between each author are loose and tentative, and these categories often overlapped, most of them focusing almost entirely upon mystery authors.

Whilst running my eyes over the contents page, I noticed a lot of authors whose names I did recognise, just a few I had never heard of, and quite a few which I have read.  Many of the authors whom Fowler includes in this tome do not deserve, in my opinion, to be called 'forgotten authors'; he writes about Margery Allingham, Virginia Andrews, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Edmund Crispin, E.M. Delafield, Barbara Comyns, Barbara Pym, and Georgette Heyer, amongst others.  

Of course, the very nature of this book makes it highly subjective.  In his justification for each inclusion, Fowler writes that he asked many people, in the form of an open question, 'which once popular authors would [you] recommend for discovery?'  The response which he received, with its 'deluge of suggestions', was as follows: 'It seemed that everyone had a personal favourite.  Authors I'd long considered to be household names had been wiped from the collective memory, and were ripe for a renaissance.  Some were mainstream novels from the recent past that caused sensations in their time.  The task of tracking them down became obsessive.'  The process of selecting authors for inclusion here consisted of two distinct factors - whether the author's books 'proved difficult to obtain', and then asking a focus group of around twenty book-lovers whether they had heard of the author in question.  Fowler ended up with a master list of around four hundred authors which could have been included.  To lessen the number of entries, he chose to leave out 'nearly all playwrights, poets, screenwriters and graphic novelists, and dumped personal indulgences.'  This, to me, seems like a limiting approach, and I feel as though far more variety would have been included in the book had the odd playwright or screenwriter been focused upon.

I did not enjoy Fowler's personal prose style, and found the book was something I was having to force myself to read, rather than picking it up out of enjoyment.  His narrative did nothing whatsoever to engage me, and I found that a lot of the portraits of the authors were repetitive.  I did not add anywhere near as many authors or books to my to-read list as I was expecting, and have only found a handful of 'forgotten authors' whom I want to check out.  If you are interested in reading this, I would recommend dipping in and out of it over a longer stretch of time, rather than reading it all in one go, as I did.

The Book of Forgotten Authors sounded highly promising, but there is so little depth to it.  Each entry is only around three pages long, and there are sometimes no suggestions for which book a new reader of a particular author would be best to begin with.  There is hardly any detail in the biographies which are presented of each author, and I found that they barely whet my appetite, as Fowler had intended them to.  The brevity in Fowler's approach did not work at all well in my opinion.  The Book of Forgotten Authors presented the author with such an opportunity, but it felt both lacking and lacklustre throughout.  There are far better books than this one which set out to do similar things.