More on the Books That Were on Every Shelf.....

 

 

I have had enormous fun in the past month or so thinking about the lost bestsellers of the past, the books that were on every shelf.

I have always covered a lot of such books on the blog, (see this post for more on this), and the recent examples were Axel Munthe’s  The Story of San Michele, 1929, and Theodore Watts-Dunton’s Aylwin (1898)  (two posts!). These books were massive bestsellers in their day, although completely forgotten now. And that meant that every second-hand-bookstore, every charity shop, and every holiday home or hotel with a bookshelf – they all had copies, back in the day. 

Many of my lovely readers responded, to prove to me that I was not alone in this perception – my bravely reading Aylwin was a result of encouragement in the comments – and that got me thinking, with two further questions.

What are the other books that you always found in second hand shops 20-30 years ago? (supplementary: were any of them any good?)

And, who are the modern-day authors who will be doomed to that fate in years to come?

PLEASE ADD to my list, if possible with a strongly opinionated verdict on any of these authors.

So in answer to the first question, I would say these are books from

Shelves of the Past 

The Whiteoaks/Jalna books by Mazo de la Roche (I only know this because I just looked it up: it’s a family saga about the Whiteoak family, who live in a house called Jalna, in Canada)

Books by BB and Richard Jeffries Jefferies (corrected, see comments below)

Hugh Walpole’s  Rogue Herries series - I read these from the public library when I was young. Walpole now known largely as the original of Alroy Kear in Cakes and Ale, a really excellent novel by Somerset Maugham)

Sergeanne Golon’s Angelique books, also available in my local library, and my goodness, they were very French and sexy while looking like respectable historical novels: I learned a lot of 17^th Century French history, yes honestly, as well as enjoying what we will politely call the romance.  The collection of covers above will give a good clue as to their content. There was another similar series, the Catherine books by Juliette Benzoni, set in the 15^th century.

English, so therefore not so full of sex: Jean Plaidy wrote about real historical figures: I once wrote about her slightly obscure The Goldsmith’s Wife, and said this: It is easy to mock Jean Plaidy, and she was no Hilary Mantel. But her historical novels were carefully researched and dealt in the facts. Of course she put words into characters’ mouths and imagined their feelings and motives, but that’s fair enough. I still think she gave me a basic grounding in history – a framework of the dates, the people – that stood me in good stead when I wanted to read more serious history books. This is not one of her better-known ones, but it was my favourite. And I’d much rather read it again than the much-praised Daughter of Time, by Josephine Tey, which deals with the same era.

Her books filled the shelves and paperback racks of secondhand shops, and there were also always a few of the Gothic romances she wrote under the name Victoria Holt.

And there were also the historical novels by Anya Seton, whose works cast a spell on their readers. I wrote here about why Katherine is a book of its time, yet also a book of the ages. Real-life protagonist Katherine Swynford had the most extraordinary life, & her place in English history is unmatched. The book is unique.

Virginia Andrews – what can you say? Flowers in the Attic was feverishly passed around the classroom by teenage girls, as were her other books which as Wikipedia puts it combined  ‘Gothic horror and family saga, revolving around family secrets and forbidden love’. When the author died, her family openly and unashamedly hired someone to keep churning the books out – commonplace now, quite unusual back in the 1980s. And there were always plenty of copies around.

 

Virginia Andrews and her mesmerising bestseller

Next, Lost bestsellers of the future 

(ie I do not think these books will live forever) And my nominees for this category would be:

The Da Vinci code and other works by Dan brown

50 shades of grey

John Grisham

Tom Clancy

 

I am looking forward to others’ contributions and suggestions.