#TheBookOfForgottenAuthors #ChristopherFowler #BlogTour

THE BOOK OF FORGOTTEN AUTHORS

by Christopher Fowler 

I am delighted to be part of the blog tour for such a beautifully produced book with such an appealing cover! My thanks to the publisher for providing me with an advance copy of the book in return for my honest and unbiased review.

Absence doesn't make the heart grow fonder. It makes people think you're dead. 

And so begins Christopher Fowler's foray into the back catalogues and backstories of 99 authors who, once hugely popular, have all but disappeared from shelves.

The forgotten authors wrote the popular paperbacks that shaped our imaginations and became touchstones of our lives. They were influential and often hugely successful, were adapted for television and theatre, but still vanished from bookshelves. What happened to these writers and their novels?

Christopher Fowler's project to 'discover' these forgotten authors is full of interesting information and in itself a real 'hidden gem' of a book. He has spent 10 years researching over 450 authors that were once popular, but have now disappeared from our shelves. He reveals the false identities they adopted, their change in careers, descent into alcoholism and a whole range of more sensational and engaging revelations that belong to the authors behind these forgotten novels which explains - or goes some way to explaining - why they have slipped from our bookshelves and become lost. There are some intriuiging tales, some sad tales, some outrageous and some which are as captivating as the murder mystery plot they might have written about. 

I consider myself relatively well read but flipping through the pages of Fowler's fondly written, concise essays I realise that recently my reading has become more narrow in that it is really only made up from the latest list of bestselling titles or from very contemporary, very much alive and currently not forgotten authors. Reading the chapters in this book and reminding myself of the authors I have read in the past and how many other authors there are that I would love to read; it made me realise how much I would like to make more time for these hidden gems. So many of these authors were as popular as their contemporaries at the time and were writing equally captivating, influential, and significant novels but for some reason have lost out on the limelight to their rivals like Agatha Christie and Charles Dickens. 

For me, this book is like a kind of dictionary for "If you liked...why not try" and I have marked a lot of pages with authors who I want to now read. For example there are the authors who wrote psychological thrillers before the genre really became the sensation it is today and a huge collection of novelists who were writing alongside those very well known authors who I have definitely read, collected all their titles and feel disappointed there is no more back catalogue. This book provides a brilliant list of 'new' authors to discover instead.  

This book reflects a huge range of circumstances which lead to these authors books becoming forgotten. As Fowler says of authors like Winifred Watson, "when it comes to literary success, timing is everything." Here is an author floored by the Depression, the attack on Peral Harbour and the Blitz - yet lucky enough to have her third book made into a film (Miss Pettiegrew Lives for a Day -I recommend you read the book first, it's better in my humble opinion), although this also begs the question why producers don't look to Fowler's collection for their next film rather than remaking those stories we already know too well! Then there are the more sensational stories like that of crime writer Arthur Upfield who was involved in an actual murder investigation himself. There's a sad entry for Barbara Pym in the "Forgotten for Writing too Little .." section whose rediscovery came within her lifetime but only two years before her untimely death. Have you heard of The Scarlet Pimpernel and Emma Orczy who wrote over 52 novels? And Bill Naughton whose work could be seen as paving the way for Coronation Street? One author I am definitely off to find more about is Margaret Millar and her short psychological thrillers from the 1950s. Oh yes and Pamela Branch whose book The Wooden Overcoat sounds like a must read. 

I enjoyed reading about Ronald Knox and his list of rules of 'fair play with the crime fiction reader' from 1929. I loved the entry about Rosaline Erskine and her 'saucy' novels about an exclusive girls' school that caused a sensation - and is actually written by Roger Erskine Longgrigg. There is a great section on the forgotten rivals of Holmes, Bond and Miss Marple and I was delighted to read about Jon Christopher whose "Tripod" trilogy was much enjoyed by myself and my siblings when we were young teenagers! 

When I received this book I thought it would be one that I might dip in and out of, that I would refer to every now and again, but sitting down one weekend afternoon I found I read it practically cover to cover. The book is divided in to sections usually defined by theme or genre. Each entry for each of the authors is only a couple of pages long and although referred to as essays, they are much more bitesize. The tone is much more informal, entertaining and written with real enthusiasm and fondness. Fowler is exceptionally good at providing several gems of information which are intriguing, surprising or interesting rather than presenting a heavy or dry essay about the literary significance of these authors. The entries are full of humour, drama, shocking revelations, fascinating insights and details and each section is introduced by a very readable essay about the genre or topic. 

This is definitely a must have handbook or guide for any reader and any lover of books. Even if you don't tend to read classics, you should pick up this book and rediscover authors who have written novels that have stood the test of time and have paved the way for the authors we love reading today. This is for readers looking for hidden gems, overlooked geniuses and something that will reignite their passion for stories. It is for those of us who are frustrated that there are no more books to read by our most favourite authors from the past as this reveals a whole new back catalogue of similar titles to go and discover. I can't wait to get searching for these writers and to rediscover their forgotten works. 

I recommend. It's also an obvious gift for Christmas! 

CHRISTOPHER FOWLER

A typical example of the late 20th century midlist author, Christopher Fowler was born in the less attractive part of Greenwich in 1953, the son of a scientist and a legal secretary. He went to a London Guild school, Colfe's, where, avoiding rugby by hiding in the school library, he was able to begin plagiarising in earnest. He published his first novel, Roofworld, described as 'unclassifiable', while working as an advertising copywriter. He left to form The Creative Partnership, a company that changed the face of film marketing, and spent many years working in film, creating movie posters, tag lines, trailers and documentaries, using his friendship with Jude Law to get into nightclubs.

During this time Fowler achieved several pathetic schoolboy fantasies, releasing an appalling Christmas pop single, becoming a male model, posing as the villain in a Batman comic, creating a stage show, writing rubbish in Hollywood, running a night club, appearing in the Pan Books of Horror and standing in for James Bond.

Now the author of over forty novels and short story collections, including his award-winning memoir Paperboy and its sequel Film Freak, he writes the Bryant & May mystery novels, recording the adventures of two Golden Age detectives in modern-day London.

In 2015 he won the CWA Dagger In The Library award for his detective series, once described by his former publisher as 'unsaleable'.

Fowler is still alive and one day plans to realise his ambition to become a Forgotten Author himself.

Don't miss the other stops on the Blog Tour:

For more recommendations and reviews follow me on Twitter @KatherineSunde3 or via my blog bibliomaniacuk.blogspot.co.uk or website bibliomaniacuk.co.uk