"My work feels more like that of a detective than an editor"
February 3, 2023 3:22 PM Subscribe
Lucy Scholes (Prospect, 01/25/2023), "Meet the archive moles": "There's a growing band of people digging through library stacks and second-hand bookshops in search of lost classics. I'm one of them." A reading list of reissues accompanying the article includes titles from Boiler House Press, Pushkin Press, Daunt Books, Faber (Memoir), Lurid Editions, Handheld Press, Another Gaze Editions, Penguin Modern Classics, British Library Publishing, and Vintage Classics. The article also mentions The Neglected Books Page, Virago Modern Classics, Persephone Books, Faber (Classics), and McNally Editions, where Scholes is an editor. Scholes previously and previouslier.
Welp, farewell to my plan to spend less money on books this month . . .
But for real: excellent post. Excellent.
posted by thivaia at 8:22 PM on February 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
But for real: excellent post. Excellent.
posted by thivaia at 8:22 PM on February 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
Fascinating!
posted by Wretch729 at 6:39 AM on February 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Wretch729 at 6:39 AM on February 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
This is great. I spent the 80s yard-saleing round the Western Suburbs of Boston [gorra lorra intellectuals moving elsewhere] buying "interesting looking" books: 10c-25c for pbacks, 50c for case-bound. I've now got yards of classic cherished books which would go straight to the shredder if I left them into Goodwill; because never 'eard of it.
posted by BobTheScientist at 7:48 AM on February 4, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by BobTheScientist at 7:48 AM on February 4, 2023 [2 favorites]
My favorite is Furrowed Middlebrow/Dean Street Press, especially because they’ve reprinted several hard-to-find Margery Sharp novels.
posted by elphaba at 8:07 AM on February 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by elphaba at 8:07 AM on February 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
Romance-review website Dear Author has an interesting interview with a small publisher who has been working on republishing out-of-print romance novels about the challenges thereof. I'm guessing the issues involved are pretty universal to all genres.
posted by posadnitsa at 8:58 AM on February 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by posadnitsa at 8:58 AM on February 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
I was hoping the article would talk a little about editing these books as part of republishing -- I know Persephone deletes/changes racist terminology, because they talk about it here. I have mixed feelings about it -- it certainly feels satisfying to see awful words go away, but I still have enough of the academic in me after all these years to be concerned about preserving texts and silent changes.
posted by JanetLand at 6:03 AM on February 5, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by JanetLand at 6:03 AM on February 5, 2023 [3 favorites]
Neglected books has a recent article on French Polish, by P. Y. Betts (1933).
The article author reprises a story he had told years back about trying to track down this mysterious author who had written short pieces back in the twenties and thirties,, then the one book, then just disappeared. He found her on a farm in Wales. She was persuaded to write her memoirs, People Who Say Goodbye, which is worth a read in its own right.
Since French Polish was nowhere to be found (I did eventually find it in the Library of Congress https://lccn.loc.gov/33037449) I wrote the author on the off chance she had a spare copy she might be willing to sell. (Hey, you don't ask, you don't get.) No, as it happened. She did reply, however, in part, as follows:
"Since People Who say Goodbye came out, several publishers have approached me about reissuing F.P but on reading it got cold feet, while praising it as being still springing from the page as fresh and witty as when it was written (about 60 years ago). The stumbling block is a farcical young black cannibal princess who is enrolled at a Swiss finishing school to the consternation of the parents of girls from the southern states of the U.S. This character (entirely imaginary) whose name is Linga Longa is sympathetically treated and well-liked by the other pensioners, but though the situation is historically correct , the publishers shrink back "in the present climate of opinion". The whole thing is absurd and intellectually dishonest, not that I mind as I am about 82 and not on the breadline yet. I had toyed with the idea of having a few hundred paperbacks privately printed for the hell of it. If I do, you shall have one."
Alas, it never happened.
(I tried retelling this modest anecdote on Forgotten Books, but their comment section is served by a very draconian akismet guard, so, for the half dozen who are interested, here you go.)
posted by BWA at 7:50 AM on February 5, 2023 [2 favorites]
The article author reprises a story he had told years back about trying to track down this mysterious author who had written short pieces back in the twenties and thirties,, then the one book, then just disappeared. He found her on a farm in Wales. She was persuaded to write her memoirs, People Who Say Goodbye, which is worth a read in its own right.
Since French Polish was nowhere to be found (I did eventually find it in the Library of Congress https://lccn.loc.gov/33037449) I wrote the author on the off chance she had a spare copy she might be willing to sell. (Hey, you don't ask, you don't get.) No, as it happened. She did reply, however, in part, as follows:
"Since People Who say Goodbye came out, several publishers have approached me about reissuing F.P but on reading it got cold feet, while praising it as being still springing from the page as fresh and witty as when it was written (about 60 years ago). The stumbling block is a farcical young black cannibal princess who is enrolled at a Swiss finishing school to the consternation of the parents of girls from the southern states of the U.S. This character (entirely imaginary) whose name is Linga Longa is sympathetically treated and well-liked by the other pensioners, but though the situation is historically correct , the publishers shrink back "in the present climate of opinion". The whole thing is absurd and intellectually dishonest, not that I mind as I am about 82 and not on the breadline yet. I had toyed with the idea of having a few hundred paperbacks privately printed for the hell of it. If I do, you shall have one."
Alas, it never happened.
(I tried retelling this modest anecdote on Forgotten Books, but their comment section is served by a very draconian akismet guard, so, for the half dozen who are interested, here you go.)
posted by BWA at 7:50 AM on February 5, 2023 [2 favorites]
I was hoping the article would talk a little about editing these books as part of republishing -- I know Persephone deletes/changes racist terminology, because they talk about it here. I have mixed feelings about it -- it certainly feels satisfying to see awful words go away, but I still have enough of the academic in me after all these years to be concerned about preserving texts and silent changes.
posted by JanetLand at 8:03 AM on February 5
Yes, this reminds me of fundamentalist religious people who actually got studios to "fix" movies so they'd be "safe" for their children. Really chilling.
Take out all of the racist terminology out of "Huckleberry Finn" and you've gutted the book; it's imperative to see/hear exactly what it was that was so horrifying about racism, how casually it was accepted by all. It's not at all pretty. It is, however, absolutely beautiful -- watch Huck's decency overcome his racism; even though he knew he was absolutely wrong he just would not -- could not -- he just could not betray his friend. It's a book that makes me feel good to be a human being.
posted by dancestoblue at 9:56 AM on February 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by JanetLand at 8:03 AM on February 5
Yes, this reminds me of fundamentalist religious people who actually got studios to "fix" movies so they'd be "safe" for their children. Really chilling.
Take out all of the racist terminology out of "Huckleberry Finn" and you've gutted the book; it's imperative to see/hear exactly what it was that was so horrifying about racism, how casually it was accepted by all. It's not at all pretty. It is, however, absolutely beautiful -- watch Huck's decency overcome his racism; even though he knew he was absolutely wrong he just would not -- could not -- he just could not betray his friend. It's a book that makes me feel good to be a human being.
posted by dancestoblue at 9:56 AM on February 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
Kaitlyn Greenidge posted a Twitter thread today more or less recommending neglected books, I guess as a response to more popular Black History Month recommendations: "Some of my favorite, messiest, memoirs from Black history...because 'Black history' doesn't always have to mean 'integration and suffering for white ppl.'"
posted by Wobbuffet at 11:26 AM on February 5, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Wobbuffet at 11:26 AM on February 5, 2023 [2 favorites]
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