--- Eric Chambers <
nqexile@yahoo.com.au> wrote:
> Glad to hear it, Patrick. But I'm still
confused.
> Does an Author need to be in print to be
considered
> 'Classic'? Or to be influential? In the
21st
> Century how many 'Classic' authors ( or even
good
> ones) are in print at any given time? Many of
the
> authors and books discussed here are currently
out
> of print. Those of us who are interested, (
A
> healthy and hopefully growing literate
minority)
> will still ferret them out. And, hey, it depends
on
> your definition of 'in print'. Hornung, like
Doyle,
> is out of Copyright. That means that a thorough
web
> search will find most of his works as ebooks just
a
> click away.It also means that you or I or
anybody
> else can publish him should we choose to do
so.
> And just because I can't resist the
symmetry,
************************************************** Hi
Eric,
I do think an author needs to have books available to
continue to influence the next generations of readers. All of
Doyle's books are continually in print in multiple editions.
I'm not aware of any current editions of Hornung's work. Most
of the writers we talk about here who are out of print, are
writers who worked in the 50s & 60s like Stephen Marlowe
or Richard Prather. These guys are classics to us for the
moment, but its unlikely that their fate will be any better
than Hornung's by 2020. Its not that they're not good. Its
that they worked a formula developed by writers who are
already classics: Hammett & Chandler, and they brought
relatively little that was new to it.
On Hornung's side, while he borrowed greatly from Doyle's
formula, he did introduce the idea of the anti hero and the
gentleman burgler in a way that had not been done before.
Nonetheless, media has not chosen to place his star on the
walk of fame. You and I may be the only people on this list
who even know who we're talking about.
I'm fairly certain that Poe, Doyle, and Collins will continue
to enjoy leather bound editions of their works, and the BBC
will make new and better media adaptations of them to a
continually interested public. I suspect that G.K.
Chesterton, Graham Green, Hammett, Chandler, Christie, Cain,
Thompson, LeCarre, and Forsyth, and yes, Ian Fleming, will
continue to gather new audiences. Their works will remain in
print, and their ideas will be the subject of new types of
media entertainment. I'll be surprised if many others
received better treatment than Hornung got. Patricia
Highsmith may have greater shelf life than I'm giving credit
for. If the BBC, for example, has the courage to put a
true-to-the-book Ripley on television, that could really
increase her portfolio. A true-to-the-book cold war version
of the James Bond stories are crying to be done, with the
supercharged Bently, the Baretta in the chamois pouch, and
the gun-metal Rolex would breath new life into a tired
franchise. And sooner or later the wide world has to discover
Ruth Rendall.
But I'd be surprised if many others actually turned the
corner to their own 100 year anniversaries. Perry Mason is a
great, unscrupulous character but really very few of the
stories hold up. On reading now, they seem rushed and
incomplete.
To answer your question, a classic is something that endures.
Those that do not endure are not classics. Because you and I
read EW Hornung and enjoyed him does not allow him to be a
classic. True, Poe nearly met such a fate. It seems dubious
to me that Hornung, Marlowe, Prather or Spillane will be
resurrected by a Beaudelaire.
But I could be wrong.
Patrick King
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