Only the Highest Grade of Tosh




Bestseller by Claud Cockburn


published 1972








I have been thinking about blog history a fair bit lately, and I have just updated my ABOUT THIS BLOG page – something I haven’t done in years. Do go and take a look. In my description, I said ‘the blog has a particular emphasis on crime fiction of all eras, classic literature, 'women's fiction' of the mid 20th C, and children's books.’ But that misses out another of my much-loved genres (and really I should amend the page): high-grade tosh in the form of massive bestsellers from a bygone age, mostly now forgotten. A snappy little category description, but many of you will know exactly what I mean.


Who knows where singing will lead? Heroines like to give it a go


And my bible for this kind of book is Claud Cockburn’s Bestseller, subtitled The Books that Everyone Read 1900-1939 – already mentioned several times on the blog. It is a perfect work of literary criticism, joyful and funny and (mostly) non-judgemental, and I have been re-reading it regularly since I first got hold of a copy, soon after publication,, and slowly working my way through his titles. He has a number of categories for the books, and he gives you the background, the author biog, the sales record (usually frankly astonishing – the numbers are staggering), lengthy excerpts and hilarious comments. He deals honestly with problematic anti-semitism and other issues.

It is an excellent book, and someone should republish it. Alternately, I am available to write an updated edition with chapters on my favourite books in the genre.

Most of my version is already written. Just for starters, I have featured Beau Geste, WJ Locke and the Beloved Vagabond, Margaret Kennedy’s Constant Nymph. There’s Michael Arlen: his The Green Hat was one of the original inspos for the blog. I had always idly wondered what the hat looked like, and although I love the hat I chose, here:


I have never felt that it was exactly the right one, I’m still looking. 

More of Cockburn’s choices on the blog: Enid Bagnold and National Velvet, Cold Comfort Farm, Mary Webb, blog favourite Georgette Heyer.

There’s the very strange When It Was Dark by Guy Thorne, which lives in between categories: I was glad I’d read it, but I’m not sure I would actually recommend it. I got three rather mystified blog entries out of it, and this picture. 


sultry actress with a heart of gold - essential character


I have now enticed my friend Chrissie Poulson into the cult, via the cunning means of finding a copy of Bestseller and sending it to her. Of course part of the fun is adding the names of books you think should have been included – her choice is The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy, and I must say she makes a valiant case: I will have to read it. Her blogpost on it here. (I note there is a Hawaiian edition of The Scarlet Pimpernel. Not something you see often.)

My own additions to the Cockburn Canon might be the lost bestsellers which I categorize as ‘I read this so you don’t have to’ – particular reference to my appalled reaction to Ouida (blog verdict: ‘I have a very high threshold for tosh of a certain kind…but Under Two Flags is just TERRIBLE’) and The Babe BA by EF Benson. (Both of these pre-1900 so earlier than his timeframe.) Owen Wister’s The Lady Baltimore is - of all excellent things – a book named after a cake, but sadly receive this verdict from me:
Unfortunately, just as you are thinking that it’s a bit of a hoot in its long-winded way, we get onto the subject of the aftermath of the American Civil War, and the position of coloured people, and the feelings of the defeated South. And there, I’m afraid, the book must completely lose all modern readers with its most discomforting and nasty views on such matters.
But also, more positively – I have enjoyed ventures into Elinor Glyn, famed for her Three Weeks, but with a large back-catalogue and a very interesting biography.

Tigerskin- essential Glyn accessory


There’s Dora Thorne by Charlotte M Brame – so popular it spawned a whole genre of books, and yes if you think you might get mixed up with which is the title and which the author, so did everyone else at the time. I read that one because it was mentioned (as an example of bad literature) in Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie - an acknowledged classic. If there’s one thing I enjoy about the blog it’s that kind of high/low connection – and also the fact that in this Internet age I can find the forgotten books easily online.


Easy to impersonate?
E Phillips Oppenheim has featured twice: there is the splendid and sexy The Great Impersonation. And then Anna the Adventuress - for which I found that wonderful top illo – which I linked to one of my favourite Agatha Christie books.

I have been to some very obscure corners of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s work – both for children and adults. She ranges from the child spies in The Lost Prince ,

via the very weird The Shuttle, to  'she is fatuous, he looks clean' from The Making of a Marchioness, mentioned approvingly in both Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate (Nancy Mitford, of course).  




And now - I have found another splendid lost bestseller to feature on the blog later this week – an absolute classic of the genre, and I can’t imagine why Claud C missed it out. It is called The Rosary, by Florence L Barclay, from 1909, and it is … well I can’t even, as the young people say. Wait till you read the plot outline and the description of the romantic heroine…














Comments

  1. I love that new category, Moira. Looking at the books that were 'blockbusters' at a certain time is such a great way to find out about the culture of that time. And just because it's a 'blockbuster' doesn't mean a book can't be a great read, too. Or a fun one. Thanks for sharing your additions, too.

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  2. Oh, do write that book! I promise to buy it and to read it.

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    1. I forgot to say: Have you read "A Very Great Profession: The Woman's Novel 1914-1939" by Nicola Beauman? It was originally (I think) her PhD thesis, but in spite of this is eminently readable. And then she founded the Persephone Press in order to republish all the wonderful books she had researched for her thesis but which were now (well, then) out of print.

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    2. Thank you! I really should write that book. And yes I have read Nicola Beauman's marvellous book, and should get it down again for more suggestions. And: I have a great anecdote on that... My goddaughter was visiting me and brought some friends. One of them, a very nice young man, was looking at my bookshelves with great interest and said 'You have a book by my Mum there', and it was Nicola Beauman's son Ned, now a writer himself...

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    3. That is a GREAT story, but I will top it with one told to me some thirty years ago by an old man, an American, by then a retired university professor, who in his distant youth had given lectures on literature for various literary clubs, church groups, etc. On this particular occasion he had given his lecture, tea was to be served and he just wanted to get away, when he was kept up by an elderly lady who approached him and said: "My boy writes stories." Not wanting to waste his time on tiresome old women, this cocky young man gritted his teeth and said something curt about catching a train, as the old lady was led away by one of the church people - and he just caught the words "Let me give you your tea, Mrs Hemingway."

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    4. Oh my goodness, what a great story!

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  3. Loved this post (tho Georgette Heyer 'tosh'???). Can I add Mazo de la Roche - endless Forsyth Saga-style series abt a multi-generational & very dysfunctional family? Also Rider Haggard 'She' books - oh, & those Rupert of Hentzau Ruritanian yarns. I went to an old-fashioned boarding school with an old-fashioned library, every tome of which - the toshier the better - I devoured.

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    1. I LOVE Georgette Heyer and also have the utmost respect for her! She is on the list because she features in the book Bestseller, and I used the term 'tosh' very widely. But also - I would like to reclaim the word,and say it's a good thing, in the manner of protest movements everywhere.

      I have never read the Mazo de la Roche books (even though they are ALWAYS well-represented in charity shops!) but must one day. Like you, I do love the Prisoner of Zenda books - I was in awe of them as a teenager (so romantic! so cosmpopolitan!) and now enjoy them on a slightly different level.

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  4. I can't wait to read your take on The Rosary, a favourite of mine since I was a young teenager. Recently my daughter and her 16-year-old friends were spellbound with delighted horror as I described the plot to them...

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    1. Oh how exciting to find someone else who has read it! Will be looking to your comments when the post goes up. The plot is... beyond anything. It IS a little bit surprising that it is so completely forgotten.

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  5. So much enjoyed Bestseller, Moira! Thank you again.

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  6. I am going to be honest here and say that I don't really understand the meaning of "tosh" and thus may be missing a lot in this post. But it does not hinder my enjoyment of the post. I will look for a copy of Cockburn's book, I think I can find one fairly easily.

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    1. It must be British slang! Tosh I suppose initially means 'rubbish', but I think is widely used here to mean a certain kind of popular book or film, one that is seen as not being at the highest level, but still has value. The phrase 'enjoyable tosh' is one reviewers might use about chicklit or a romcom. I am trying to reclaim the phrase: nothing wrong with lighter fiction and entertainment.
      Now you have to introduce it to the US Tracy!

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  7. I loved the picture of the woman in the green hat and went back to some earlier posts. She is truly a woman of mystery. I took a look around for some other green hats and felt the following had a bit of a piratical brim -

    https://thedressingroomsf.com/products/women-s-hats-vintage-1960s-1970s-does-1920s-adela-new-york-depp-moss-green-felt-cloche-hat

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    1. Oh I do like that one Bill, I would like to wear it! I cannot see ANY green hat without thinking of that book. Thanks for the kind words.

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  8. In the movie of The Green Hat, Garbo wore a cloche hat.

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    1. Ken, I think that is probably what Arlen intended for her hat, I just like to keep my options open! It would be right for the publication date of 1924.
      I haven't seen the film, and plainly should! I am off to look it up.

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  9. Ha thanks for the reminder that I still haven't read Oppenheim's The Great Impersonation

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    1. Yes - you see what you are responsible for! I would read another by him, they are really first class tosh...

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