www.NeglectedBooks.com: Where forgotten books are remembered
Memorable passages excerpted from some of the neglected books mentioned or featured on this site.
“Doctor, connected with hospital, requires in private practice, light colored girl. Must be neat and obliging.” “Well, Lydia,” said the woman seated at the desk, “what’s happened? Didn’t that job do?” The young coloured girl …
Unemployed Crowd Benches of New York Parks as New Year Begins Charlie huddled in the doorway, protected somewhat from the tugging wind; but when he saw the old lady approaching with her dog, he squared …
One of my Neglected Books guilty pleasures is the work of the prolific French novelist Maurice Dekobra. There was a time when Dekobra was among the best-known and most successful authors in the world. His …
Editor’s Note: This entry for June 30, 1934, written by the Swedish novelist Gustav Sandgren, offers a timely reminder of the precarious nature of freedom. Headline: “Wanderers on the Face of the Earth” [Sweden] The …
“Fatal Motor Accident in Bois de Boulogne” Damocles is drunk. He has imbibed a stock of whisky, a warehouse of gin and a dockyard of champagne. Before slumping over the steering-wheel, he declares that the …
Back in March, I posted a short item about two forgotten novels I’d come across in an advertisement in the Times Literary Supplement. Neither received much attention and both quickly disappeared from sight. I was …
Ralph Richardson and Basil Dean Some thirty years ago, Richardson was rehearsing a play directed by Basil Dean. The latter was the last of the old-time directors on the British side of the Atlantic. By …
It is not that I am a particularly avid drinker, but one partial to a glass of beer or a glass or two of wine with a meal, and then a lift at the start …
Dear Ed, Lou died on June 2, 1941. He was unmercifully young — only thirty-eight. Our last Christmas together was in 1940, and to keep Lou occupied I held open house at our home in …
January 5th For seventeen years, seven days a week, Joe Berman has efficiently presided over his newsstand at the corner of Eighty-sixth Street and Broadway. He opens it before five in the morning. Mrs. Berman, …
He turns his attention to the head gardener, who has been hovering in the background. They go through the houses — orchids, gardenias — a whole house full of these — a purple lasiandra climbing …
Perhaps no other moral quality affects so profoundly the stability of social institutions as that of truthfulness, including under that term both accuracy of statement and fidelity in carrying out agreements. Among business men on …
The 1880s saw a short-lived craze for roller skating in America. Operators opened up skating rinks in most major cities, and boosters like Thomas Nicholson of Boston tried to stimulate the trade by publishing tips …
The Italians mix their officers shrewdly. Some are very ferocious looking gentlemen with fast-growing beards and grenades exploding dramatically on their caps, while others are very old men in shirtsleeves, who have some difficulty in …
It was not only the well-known writers who had contributions to make; one is forever being surprised in Dublin by the high standard of knowledge displayed by ordinary citizens in any walk or on any …
I’m not sure I can reprint the entirety of Julia Strachey’s one New Yorker piece, “Can’t You Get Me Out of Here,” which I mentioned in my post on Strachey’s autobiography (posthumously edited by Frances …
If you loved Clive James’ Cultural Amnesia, you’re going to find Salka Viertel’s memoir, The Kindness of Strangers as addictive as a bag of potato chips. Born in Galicia–meaning Poland–er, now Ukraine, coming of age …
Alone, she persuaded Wall Street bankers to finance her unit, Gloria Swanson, Inc., to the extent of $1,200,000, taking as consideration her box office record and her insurance policies of several million dollars. Alone, she …
Wine costs so much a bottle, ready made. When you have once got over the effort of hospitality (if it is an effort) there is nothing to do but open the bottle and wait. But …
At St. Geronde: go to the Croix Blanche, the most execrable receptacle of filth, vermin, impudence, and imposition that ever exercised the patience, or wounded the feelings of a traveller. A withered hag, the daemon …