Re: RARA-AVIS: Re: E W Hornung.

From: Jess Nevins ( jjnevins@ix.netcom.com)
Date: 11 Nov 2007


-----Original Message-----
>From: jacquesdebierue < jacquesdebierue@yahoo.com>
>> > > "Patrick King"
>> > > abrasax93@
>> > > wrote:
>> > >> I don't dismiss Hornung at all. I love Hornung. But
>> > >
>> > > his books are our of print.
>> >
>> Have you read any of the collections of Raffles stories written by
>> Berry Perowne (i.e. Philip Atkey) in the 1930s. Have managed to get
>> hold of one, and enjoyed it. It's a pity someone has not released a
>> collection of them since.
>
>Barry Perowne, an outstanding writer, seems to be all but forgotten.
>Occasionally one of his stories will appear in an anthology, but I bet
>his name has little recognition. Marvellous writer. I was thinking of
>this oblivion phenomenon the other day, while rereading a collection
>of short stories (not crime stories) by the great A.E. Coppard,
>another English master living with the cobwebs except for the
>occasional appearance in an anthology for students... Tough luck.

It's even worse for the mid-listers. Consider T. Arthur Plummer. As I wrote here: http://nofearofthefuture.blogspot.com/2007/08/care-and-feeding-of-your-dead-writer.html Plummer wrote seventy novels, fifty about his main character, Detective-Inspector Andrew Frampton. Fifty novels, over thirty years. And now both Plummer and Frampton are utterly forgotten. At one time Plummer was hugely prolific, and presumably rather popular. And now? He's not even a footnote.

jess



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