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

[french frank]

Of Gissing’s vast output, I think only two novels - New Grub Street and The Odd Women - have been consistently in print.

Everything else seems to be available for free download online, but you might struggle to find Workers in the Dawn (his first novel) and Isabel Clarendon (which I’d be interested in reading, because in the opinion of some, it is the most depressing novel in the english language).

An 'interesting' life too! As well as New Grub Street, The Odd Women and By the Ionian Sea, I have Born in Exile and The Netherworld, plus something else which I've forgotten: it will be quicker took for it on wiki than go and look for I enjoyed them all but haven't re read any for quite a while.

I remember: The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft; also The House of Cobwebs which I forget entirely. Is is short stories?

[gradus]

Just remembered that I really enjoyed Smollett's Humphrey Clinker and Roderick Random some years ago and I must re-read them. I preferred both to Tristram Shandy but who reads Smollett now.

[Katzelmacher]

An 'interesting' life too! As well as New Grub Street, The Odd Women and By the Ionian Sea, I have Born in Exile and The Netherworld, plus something else which I've forgotten: it will be quicker took for it on wiki than go and look for I enjoyed them all but haven't re read any for quite a while.

I remember: The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft; also The House of Cobwebs which I forget entirely. Is is short stories?

Yes: House Of Cobwebs is short stories and there was once an Everyman edition of GG’s selected shorter stuff. All excellent, as I recall.

Now you’ve reminded me: there was an OUP paperback of .....Ryecroft which was still in print when I last looked.

I have several of the rather wonderful Harvester editions of Gissing that were published in the mid-seventies. As books, they are real objets d’art.

[LHC]

I always maintain that with Shakespeare, if Macbeth is your GCSE set text, you might want to explore further. If it’s Romeo or The Dream, you’ll probably have had enough.

On the subject of R&J - why do ‘educators’ think that this is a suitable text for ‘young people’? Afai, every kid who has ever expressed an interest in drama has at some point been forced to perform in a production of Romeo and Juliet (I was Prince Escalus - it confirmed my view that, contrary to popular belief, WS was more than capable of writing lousy parts; Friar Laurence is another such).

When I was at school, it was arranged for our English class to see a showing of Zeffirelli's film of R&J at the local cinema. At the last minute, this was vetoed by the school's headmistress, who had found out that it included a scene in which Romeo's naked bottom was momentarily visible. So in place of R&J we were all taken to see Polanski's Macbeth instead, which turned out to be far more explicit and gory than R&J. It also had a AA certificate, and should therefore have been restricted to over 14s. Most of our class were still 13 at the time, and technically too young to be allowed in. Judging by the shocked and pale faces of our teachers as we came out of the cinema, none of them had seen it before or had any idea what it was going to be like. We all enjoyed it immensely.

[Historian]

Just remembered that I really enjoyed Smollett's Humphrey Clinker and Roderick Random some years ago and I must re-read them. I preferred both to Tristram Shandy but who reads Smollett now.

Well, there's you and me, at least. As these books are still in print there is obviously a sufficient market for them: maybe primarily university libraries bu who can tell. My recent reading has also included Gissing's 'New Grub Street', and Meredith's 'The Ordeal of Richard Feverel'. More likely to return to Gissing I think and very glad to now understand 'Ed Reardon's Week' better.

I have just finished 'The Search' by C.P. Snow. I believe that he was much read post-war but seems little-known now, apart from references to his 'Two Cultures' lecture.

We can't know for sure how many people read such books nowadays, maybe it's more than we think. One can obtain almost any book now (via abebooks et al), even if the local charity shops (where like 8 O I buy many of mine) are sometimes less well stocked than they might be. Others who are better informed will be able to give give their opinion, but has it not been the case that there have always been authors who were fashionable/ popular at the time and their works were what most people read. Some of these authors coincided with 'great' writers e.g. Dickens: others are now mostly names (Marie Corelli?). There is still obviously a market for current fiction, some of it 'serious', much of it not. Maybe this is a more constant state of affairs than we might imagine?

[Katzelmacher]

A forgotten book, famous in its day, is The Rack by A.E. Ellis (Derek Lindsay) which I downloaded to Kindle a couple of years back. Definitely one of the bleakest, most harrowing books I’ve ever read.

[muzzer]

Imo, as a novelist (he doesn’t seem to have attempted poetry) he is vastly superior to Thomas Hardy whose bucolic faux-tragedies have enjoyed an inexplicable popularity for the last hundred and fifty years.

Of Gissing’s vast output, I think only two novels - New Grub Street and The Odd Women - have been consistently in print.

Everything else seems to be available for free download online, but you might struggle to find Workers in the Dawn (his first novel) and Isabel Clarendon (which I’d be interested in reading, because in the opinion of some, it is the most depressing novel in the english language).

There’s quite a subculture of interest in Gissing I think, but you’re right he’s mostly out of print. And some of his novels aren’t exactly rays of sunshine.

[muzzer]

A forgotten book, famous in its day, is The Rack by A.E. Ellis (Derek Lindsay) which I downloaded to Kindle a couple of years back. Definitely one of the bleakest, most harrowing books I’ve ever read.

I read this recently, as part of research into TB. Great novel, v depressing, agreed.

[jayne lee wilson]

I think there was a point at which ...Mr.Polly was a popular ‘O’ level text, but its popularity seems to have been restricted to teachers and exam boards. I know several people who were made to study it and they all loathed it. I think it’s wrong to ‘study’ a book that the author only intended as a pleasant diversion. Apparently, Diary of a Nobody had much the same effect on ‘O’ level classes - a shame, as it’s a likeable book.

Great thing about doing Polly at O level was it led to me borrowing....War of the Worlds from the local library....

The rest is - cinematic, USA Radio, Musical and TV History ....

It changed Humanity. What an icon.

****
Some novelistic forms work better on film - sic-fi of course, but also e.g.. picaresque as per Smollett and Thackeray, with classics like Kubrick's Barry Lyndon and the Richardson/Osborne Tom Jones to their highly adaptable credit...

It is as if some genres, or types of narrative, have to wait centuries to find a more appropriate artistic or expressive medium....

[duncan]

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

Given the great majority of authors studied in (say) the 1950s were DWMs, random attrition would mean the great majority of Writers Who Are No Longer Read would be said DWMs...

[Barbirollians]

Given the great majority of authors studied in (say) the 1950s were DWMs, random attrition would mean the great majority of Writers Who Are No Longer Read would be said DWMs...

Exactly

[Katzelmacher]

Speaking of DWF writers ..... how is Carson McCullers’ reputation holding up these days?

I remember reading Reflections In A Golden Eye when I was sixteen - still one of the most extraordinary books I’ve ever read - and assuming the author was a DWM because I assumed the name ‘Carson’ to be exclusively male (it was my grandfather’s middle name).

[mikealdren]

I assumed the name ‘Carson’ to be exclusively male (it was my grandfather’s middle name).

Ah the good old days when you could usually assume the sex (gender??) from Christian name (forename??).

However in previous generations, family names were often used as middle names, particularly the mother's maiden name. For instance, my father's middle name was Robinson and my Mother in Law has family middle names too.

[cloughie]

Ah the good old days when you could usually assume the sex (gender??) from Christian name (forename??).

However in previous generations, family names were often used as middle names, particularly the mother's maiden name. For instance, my father's middle name was Robinson and my Mother in Law has family middle names too.

Though there’s always been Shirley, Lindsey (Lindsay), Leslie (Lesley), Francis (Frances) and the the shortening to Chris, Pat and the case of Carol!

[Constantbee]

Marvelous thread this, thanks! One that springs to mind would be A J Cronin whose novels like How Green was my Valley and The Stars Look Down became emblematic of the 20th century socialist British fiction that inspired many welfare reforms.

Another must be US crime fiction writer David Goodis. His short stories and novels written in the terse yet poetic style of the noir thriller went out of print in the US after his death in 1967 but remained popular in France. Nightfall (1947) remains one of the earliest and best examples of the use of forensic psychology in a plot resolution. It was later filmed in the low budget but acclaimed 1956 movie of the same name. His novel Down There (1956 aka Shoot the Piano Player) was famously filmed in François Truffaut’s 1960 new wave movie Tirez sur le Pianiste, starring Charles Aznavour – highly recommended.