Overlooked writers: Kevin Wilson on David Bowman
Reading Theodora Keogh last year, I was amazed not so much that I’d never heard of her, but that it seemed almost no one had either. More recently, Blake Bailey’s comprehensive biography of John Cheever underscored for me just how many writers, acclaimed in one decade, end up forgotten.
Below Kevin Wilson, author of [...]
Writer split in two: On Keogh’s My Name is Rose
A few weeks ago, I arrived, breathless, to meet Terry for a quick brunch at Rice before a (disappointing) matinee performance of The Black Watch.
For once I wasn’t winded due to lateness. I’d just finished reading Theodora Keogh’s (at right) marvelous My Name is Rose* on the train, and I was ready to wax [...]
Novelist Theodora Keogh back in print, online
All her novels were out of print when Teddy Roosevelt’s granddaughter, the talented and scandalous writer Theodora Keogh, died in obscurity a couple months ago.
Last week I discovered (and briefly mentioned) that several of them were revived as 80¢ e-books for Amazon’s Kindle. The Kindle itself, however, was sold out. (Also, it costs [...]
Gamel Woolsey, the late and ever-thwarted novelist
LOST Magazine is a monthly online publication that aims to “reclaim in writing lost people, places, and things.”
In the current issue, Emma Garman remembers Gamel Woolsey (1895–1968), the South Carolina poet and novelist who “was cursed with that shadowy defining quality of the greatest artists: the inability to coax life into satisfying her [...]
Persephone Books: rescuing forgotten novels by women
The publishing arm of Persephone Books, a bookshop on Lamb’s Conduit Street in London, revives novels, mostly by women, that have fallen out of print and dropped out of public consciousness. The books are bound in gray covers, with endpaper fabric in patterns dating to the year of first publication.
For Peter [...]
Old books wanted
At least 98% of all books ever published are now out of print, according to figures the Telegraph’s Mark Sanderson dug up at BookFinder, so readers have to hunt for old copies.
Out-of-print titles most sought after by American readers last year include: The Bed Book by Sylvia Plath, The Mint by T. E. [...]
De Vries back in print
Just before Thanksgiving last year, I ran a short series of posts from readers advocating books that have drifted out of print. Robert Nedelkoff of the Lost Books Club wrote in to lament the unavailability of titles by three American writers. Peter De Vries topped his list.
Next month, the University of Chicago [...]
Readers’ Revival Suggestions
Sarah Yake writes:
This email isn’t about an out-of-print title, but rather about a great little publisher in England that is bringing books back into print, Persephone Books.
Most of the titles are by British women from the first half of the 20th century, and many of the authors were well-known in their day. Mollie Panter-Downes, one [...]
In Print One Year, Then Out?
Susan Ramsey, of the Athena Book Shop in Kalamazoo, MI, writes:
Out of Print, c’est moi. My official job at the Athena Book Shop is Out of Print searches, something the internet has made so much easier that any minute now people are going to figure out they don’t need me. What isn’t generally [...]
Cowan’s Out-of-Print Look at 70’s Culture Wars Still Relevant Today?
In the current issue of Columbia Journalism Review, Rick Perlstein recalls Tyler Cowan’s Tribes of America, an out-of-print book about the 1970’s “culture wars.” He heralds Cowan’s ability “to probe where those he disagreed with were coming from while still understanding why he disagreed with them” as a token of the author’s “moral seriousness [...]
Out-of-Print Expert Weighs In
Robert Nedelkoff, out-of-print maestro, sends this message:
I’ll begin by saying that for the last year and a half I’ve been on the advisory board of the Lost Books Club, which Mark Moskowitz set up with the late Leslie Fiedler as a result of the Stone Reader documentary, and that the LBC’s next selection, “The LBJ [...]
What we’ve lost (or are in danger of losing)
On Tuesday I mentioned Tom Boncza-Tomaszewski’s fascinating article about authors who’ve slipped or are slipping into obscurity. His list of five out-of-print recommendations inspired me to invite readers to send in their own.
Today Mr. Boncza-Tomaszewski wrote in to supplement his original suggestions, saying:
Unfortunately I was asked to provide the list of [...]
Lauded and forgotten
In case you weren’t been depressed enough by the McCrum piece (see below), Emma directs me to another article on the subject of once-famous writers slipping into obscurity. This one appeared in Sunday’s Independent, but isn’t online (update: now it is). Tom Boncza-Tomaszewski writes:
It’s a dismal afternoon and I’ve ended up searching [...]
Writers who go missing
Robert McCrum tracks down Desmond Hogan, an Irish writer whose early work was lauded by writers like Ted Hughes and Kazuo Ishiguro. Once represented by the same agent who handled Salman Rushdie, Iain McEwan, and Peter Carey, Hogan dropped out of view some years ago, seeking solitude and travelers’ stories, and publishing nothing.
But [...]