Prolific authors who have faded into obscurity

[bonzer]

When Pearl S. Buck came up when there was a similar thread back in 2010 and someone suggested that she was completely forgotten in the UK, I observed:

@bonzer

Though here in the UK is surely precisely where Pearl S. Buck is currently going through the once-in-a-generation temporary blip/re-assessment in reputation, courtesy of the new Hilary Spurling biography of her. Duly reviewed in all the broadsheets earlier this year, etc.

I even saw a London bookshop do a special in-store display of about a dozen of her titles in the last couple of months. Granted it was a branch of Daunt’s and most of them were imports, though offhand I believe The Good Earth is still in print here (Penguin Modern Classics?).

I may as well take the opportunity to recommend Christopher Fowler’s 2012 book Invisible Ink, based on his long-running Independent on Sunday column. The whole idea is to highlight once-famous authors or works that have been forgotten. He doesn’t quite recommend all of them, but it’s a good source of off-beat reading material, as well as a meditation on the vagaries of literary reputations.