Tracks of Forgotten Books, or, Subjects For No Further Research

I love publishers who made a practice of listing their other releases on the flyleaf or dust jacket, because these can be the clues that lead me to a forgotten gem.

But sometimes, these lists are just a set of dusty tracks. Here, for example, is the list of titles that appears on the back of one of Peter Davies’ 1960 releases.

The first entry, Kathleen Sully’s Skrine, is quite familiar. I wrote about it in 2018 while I was on the trail of Sully’s remarkable oeuvre. At the time, I wrote of this bleak post-apocalyptic fable, “None of the four novels by Kathleen Sully I’ve read so far is anything quite like the others, but I feel safe in saying that Skrineis the most unlike the rest.” Having since read all 19 of Sully’s books, I can say that statement still holds true.

But I recognized none of the other titles in the list, which led me to start researching. Here are my findings, which should, if nothing else, convince you that like archaeologists and prospectors, searchers after neglected literary gems have to sift through their share of junk and dust along the way.

• The Angel in the Coffin, by Michael Ellis

Michael Ellis was the pseudonym of Stephen Llewellyn, an English reporter turned New Zealand soldier turned writer who died at the age of 47, not long after this second novel was published. The story follows a Dutch freighter taking European emigrants to New Zealand. One of the few reviews I’ve been able to locate said that Ellis/Llewellyn wrote “as if he had plums in his month” — whatever that means.

• All the Loyal People, by David Stone

Stone’s second novel. His first was a well-received spoof of the roman policier a la Simenon et al.. This one recounts a year in the life of a society reporter and failed novelist who bounces between a dingy flat and a series of parties, getting involved with a Gatsby-like operator and (of course) a mysterious beautiful young woman. The Observer’s reviewer called it “A most able satire on London’s scruffy hinterland,” but both The Evening Standard and New York Times wondered about the author’s real intent: “The narrator’s self-disgust keeps breaking in on the light comedy and suggests that the author was in two minds about the kind of book he was writing.” Several reviewers also found the marginal characters more interesting than the protagonist, which does seem to be a chronic problem among young-man-coming-of-age tales.

• The Crop Dusters, by Geoff Taylor

An adventure novel in the Nevil Shute vein, about a group of former RAAF pilots who gather to fly crop dusters in a battle against a plague of locusts in New South Wales. It’s full of details about flying the old prop planes, with the drama of the battle against the insects. “Written in unpretentious but sharply evocative prose,” wrote one Australian reviewer. “Sunny in mood, simple in plan, subtle in execution,” concluded the Birmingham Post.

• After the Storm, John Gilbert

This appears to be a pastiche on the Victorian tragedy of the good girl gone wrong. I say appears because the only review I could locate was brief and buried in the pages of Pacific Islands Monthly, an Australian magazine. After her fiance drowns himself and leaves her pregnant and penniless, Gilbert’s heroine puts her good looks to work and finds that the wages of sin can result in a decent living if you’re sharp about it.

• Stranger in Allanford, by E. C. Axford

A wartime evacuee returns to the village and home where she was hosted as a child. “A novel of compelling quality” is as much of a review as I can find. The author was an Oxford headmaster and this appears to have been his only venture into fiction.

• Mutiny in the Attic, by Betty Singleton

Hard to tell if this is sweet or saccharine. Four pensioners living in Eventide Home revolt against the home’s management and take off on an adventure. “A charming tale … the characterisation uncommonly good” said the Bristol Evening Post, one of the few papers to bother reviewing it. Despite the suggestion of malice in the cover illustration, I’m pretty sure that Lord of the Flies in an old age home this ain’t.

• The Self-Made Man, by Sylvia Cooper

Something of an odd choice of title for an English publisher. It’s about a Detroit trucking entrepreneur who looks back over his life at sixty, finding himself less satisfied with his personal successes than his business. The Philadelphia Inquirer was one of the few U.S. papers to give it a review and that one was negative: “The novel, an unfortunate waste of writing talent, falls flat from every viewpoint.”

• The Young Kings, by Laurence Moody

Two long short stories, one about an encounter in the Alps and the other set on a Greek island. Moody’s later novel The Ruthless Ones was later filmed as What Became of Jack and Jill?. Other than the fact that the first story involves mountaineering, I’ve been unable to track down any other details. Moody also wrote The Roxton Kibbutz, about an ill-conceived attempt to establish a commune in the early 1970s (those wacky hippies!). He may or may not be the same person as the later TV director (Taggart, et al.).

All these were listed on the back of The Initial Error, by Lydia Holland, which itself appears to have received no reviews. Which is surprising, given that she was the daughter of the prolific writer and reviewer Leonora Eyles and the one-time TLS editor D. L. Murray, ex-wife of the Italian critic Mario Praz, and well-regarded translator of Alberto Moravia and others.

So, all in all, a disappointing lot. However, if you happen to stumble across one of the above and find I’ve grossly underestimated its merits, please let us know.