‘Great’ writers who are no longer read (by so many)

[Katzelmacher]

I think this would make for a long list. Some are still famous as ‘names’ (Walter Pater, George Borrow, Charles Reade, Charles Kingsley and, perhaps most obviously, George Meredith) but their works are read by no-one apart from research academics and they are mostly out of print, though available freely online.

In the case of Meredith, his prose style has dated even more badly than most Victorian novelists’ and is somewhat off-putting to the modern reader. He has his advocates, but they are very few.

D.H.Lawrence is still a famous name, but his critical reputation seems to have taken a beating in the last thirty or so years. He is loathed by feminists for his perceived ‘phallocentrism’ and generally tagged (incorrectly) as a right-winger (owing to his avowed contempt for democracy and certain statements that he made during WW1).

Saul Bellow, whose readership was never all that strong outside North America and Canada, has likewise fallen into neglect because of his late in life embrace of conservative attitudes/politics. Personally, I think it’s for the more obvious reason that people have rumbled him and that his books are nowhere near as good as they were considered at one time.

Then there are the partially-neglected: three of John Fowles’ works are still widely read and popular (we all know which ones) but no-one has any time for the rest (on a personal note, I deeply resent the week I wasted reading Daniel Martin).

I’m sure we can think of a few others?

[Katzelmacher]

Just thought of another one: Richard Hughes - only remembered nowadays (if at all) for A High Wind in Jamaica, but his (incomplete) trilogy The Human Predicament was squaring up to be a mighty piece of work. I’m not sure the two volumes he completed (The Fox in the Attic and The Wooden Shepherdess) are even still in print.

[oddoneout]

I find prose style to be a hurdle for many such writers, but I wonder if an added problem for modern readers is that if the world being written about is so very different from the current one, it can hamper understanding of the material to perhaps a greater extent than previously. Some authors seem to rise above that for whatever reason - Jane Austen for instance - perhaps by making the characters the focus and not needing to rely too much on their setting and the mechanics of their lives. One of the books from a lockdown preparation charity shop trawl was set pre-WW2 but because there was very little mention of things such as cars and telephones not so much because of their scarcity at that time as because the story did not need them, so there was little to snag the more modern mind used to easily contacting people or travelling being car-based.

[gradus]

As a reader new to Hemingway I find his style oddly amateurish and his spoken dialogue almost a parody of Mills and Boon. I hasten to add that my impressions are based solely on A Farewell to Arms so hardly a balanced view of such a celebrated figure. Occasionally I get on the same wavelength as him but it doesn't last for more than a page or two. Presumably persistence on my part will eventually reveal the genius I have failed to find so far.

[Petrushka]

There's a local resident who started putting out a box of books outside their home when lockdown began in March 2020 and still continue to do so. They're entirely free and you can add your own unwanted items if you wish. A week or two ago I was surprised to see a Pan paperback of 'No Highway' by Nevil Shute in there and it set me wondering if anyone reads him anymore. I snapped it up anyway as I read one or two of his many years ago and enjoyed them.

[Katzelmacher]

As a reader new to Hemingway I find his style oddly amateurish and his spoken dialogue almost a parody of Mills and Boon. I hasten to add that my impressions are based solely on A Farewell to Arms so hardly a balanced view of such a celebrated figure. Occasionally I get on the same wavelength as him but it doesn't last for more than a page or two. Presumably persistence on my part will eventually reveal the genius I have failed to find so far.

Hemingway is another excellent example of what I mean. He is still a ‘name’ and in print but his reputation is not what it was. Admittedly, it’s years and years since I last read anything by him but my vivid memory of the few I did read was of not feeling anywhere near as impressed as I’d expected. But then that’s the fate of so many who found a ‘school’ of writing - eventually, they become indistinguishable from their more accomplished imitators.

[Katzelmacher]

There's a local resident who started putting out a box of books outside their home when lockdown began in March 2020 and still continue to do so. They're entirely free and you can add your own unwanted items if you wish. A week or two ago I was surprised to see a Pan paperback of 'No Highway' by Nevil Shute in there and it set me wondering if anyone reads him anymore. I picked it up anyway as I read one or two of his many years ago.

Shute is still in print (in Vintage paperback, no less) but I’ve never read anything by him. Not sure why, I’ve always had more appealing things to read. He is another author who would be considered far right (or should we say ‘nascent mainstream’?) today, but I don’t think anyone reads him anymore and his name will mean nothing to most people under 70.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Shute is still in print (in Vintage paperback, no less) but I’ve never read anything by him. Not sure why, I’ve always had more appealing things to read. He is another author who would be considered far right (or should we say ‘nascent mainstream’?) today, but I don’t think anyone reads him anymore and his name will mean nothing to most people under 70.

I think you are pretty wide if the mark here . Not sure I would describe Nevil Shute as “far right” .I’ve read quite a few of his books - he’s more of a one nation conservative . Most of his heroes and heroines are fairly ordinary people - often engineers - who end up doing quite heroic practical things. I also think you completely underestimate his popularity. Many of his books are still in print published by Vintage Classics a highly regarded publishing house . Many of the authors mentioned on this site like Hemingway and Lawrence still sell pretty well - virtually all their work is still in print . Indeed there’s a major new biography of Lawrence Just published . It is completely inaccurate to say they are no longer read.

[richardfinegold]

Need I point out that all the authors mentioned in the OP are Dead White Males? Here Universities have been systemically banning the output of Cultural Hedgemons from Humanities Courses

[Bella Kemp]

I think we must include Patrick White - a truly great writer whose books seem no longer to be read, although most seem to be still in print. I am a huge fan, but do sympathise with those who find much of his work a bit of a trudge. Perhaps part of the problem lies in the fact that Voss is his most widely eulogised book and yet it can be hard going at times - so first-time readers go for this and then are put off him for good. To my mind, 'Riders in the Chariot' is his finest novel.
White's focus was primarily on the eccentric outsiders in society - those whom no-one really notices, yet whose lives truly reflect and reveal the deeper meanings of human existence.

[muzzer]

Saul Bellow, whose readership was never all that strong outside North America and Canada, has likewise fallen into neglect because of his late in life embrace of conservative attitudes/politics. Personally, I think it’s for the more obvious reason that people have rumbled him and that his books are nowhere near as good as they were considered at one time.

I think it’s almost entirely down to white males being cancelled and that Bellow is actually much better than given credit for outside North America. Tastes change. And are subjective.

[Petrushka]

I think you are pretty wide if the mark here . Not sure I would describe Nevil Shute as “far right” .I’ve read quite a few of his books - he’s more of a one nation conservative . Most of his heroes and heroines are fairly ordinary people - often engineers - who end up doing quite heroic practical things. I also think you completely underestimate his popularity. Many of his books are still in print published by Vintage Classics a highly regarded publishing house . Many of the authors mentioned on this site like Hemingway and Lawrence still sell pretty well - virtually all their work is still in print . Indeed there’s a major new biography of Lawrence Just published . It is completely inaccurate to say they are no longer read.

As the one who mentioned Nevil Shute in the first place, I'm very glad to hear that his books are still in print and, hopefully, being read. Agree with your points re Hemingway and Lawrence too.

There is a danger, in a thread like this, that we can easily think that because I haven't heard of an author for many years or read his/her books then no-one else has either and we might possibly be projecting our own prejudices on to the wider reading public.

What we perhaps need to look at are those authors, highly popular in their day, who have, for one reason or another fallen out of fashion. I'd be thinking here of authors such as John Buchan and Dornford Yates, John Creasey and Alastair MacLean, not all great writers by any means but massively popular and writing in a genre that has dated or moved on. I read all of them at one time. Another author I remember well from years ago is Victor Canning but not sure if his books are even in print these days.

Great writers will still be read as long as there are readers to read them regardless of the dictates of fashion and PC.

[Belgrove]

Apart from the Claudius books and Goodbye To All That, Robert Graves’ large corpus is, I suspect, mostly ignored nowadays. He regarded his prose works as a means to fund his poetry (also lapsed), but they have great precision and concision in deploying the language without the style drawing attention to itself and impeding the narrative (like Graham Greene?) King Jesus is an account of the gospels with an intriguingly secular take on the miracles, the crucifixion seen as both a fulfilment and vanquishing of the ancient matriarchal religions espoused in his White Goddess (who reads that?) Antigua Penny Puce is an amusing feud between siblings over a rare stamp, better than any of Waugh’s snooty ‘comedies.’ Wife to Mr Milton, written from the perspective of Marie Powell, reveals Milton as a bullying monster. Count Belisarius, set at the fag-end of the Roman Empire has, in the form of Theodora, a villainess as lethal as Livia. I hoovered up his entire works years ago, and there is hardly a dud amongst them. The historical novels have all the political intrigue, pace and characterisation found in Robert Harris’ books, so why Graves has fallen from favour is a bit of a mystery.

[Ein Heldenleben]

As the one who mentioned Nevil Shute in the first place, I'm very glad to hear that his books are still in print and, hopefully, being read. Agree with your points re Hemingway and Lawrence too.

There is a danger, in a thread like this, that we can easily think that because I haven't heard of an author for many years or read his/her books then no-one else has either and we might possibly be projecting our own prejudices on to the wider reading public.

What we perhaps need to look at are those authors, highly popular in their day, who have, for one reason or another fallen out of fashion. I'd be thinking here of authors such as John Buchan and Dornford Yates, John Creasey and Alastair MacLean, not all great writers by any means but massively popular and writing in a genre that has dated or moved on. I read all of them at one time. Another author I remember well from years ago is Victor Canning but not sure if his books are even in print these days.

Great writers will still be read as long as there are readers to read them regardless of the dictates of fashion and PC.

I think people confuse visibility in terms of media coverage with actual sales. Nevil Shute it is true is not the name on every one’s lips . He’s become a bit of a sleeper . Sales of his best known book A Town Like Alice will pick every time the movie is shown . His anti - nuke book On The Beach probably shifts a few thousand copies maybe globally a lot more . He’s a classic example, like Lawrence , still shifting tens possibly hundreds of thousands of copies every year - of the long tail . There’s a market for just about anything - printing a book is dirt cheap. You only need to sell a few thousand a week to get on the best sellers list . Of the more literary authors all Lawrence’s work in in print in paperback and in a scholarly hardback Phoenix edition - though he wouldn’t be selling any thing like as much as in the 60’s / 70’s with Lady Chatterley trial and the Ken Russell movies (travesties) . Hemingway will , I suspect , be selling a lot, lot more .The recent Ken Burns doc will have helped massively.
Bella Kemp is right about Patrick White though . He was a big name in the 60’s and seems to have faded completely much more so than Bellow.
Although they all still sell there is a long list of British authors who used to be very very fashionable, no longer are and , in my view knock spots off a lot of contemporary authors . e.g. A.S. Byatt , Nina Bawden , Iris Murdoch, Eric Linklater, Angus Wilson ,

[eighthobstruction]

....I'd be interested to know what titles are on 'O' amd 'A' level syllabuses....???