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 17th 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 15th 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.

Comments

  1. Oh, this is absolutely intriguing, Moira! Hmm........ John Alexander Graham wrote a few books back in the early 1970s. I'm honestly not sure how popular they were; I read them and enjoyed them. But I simply don't see them now - not even in reprints. I got my copies from secondhand stores and library sales. It may not be exactly what you had in mind, but I thought about it reading your post.

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    1. That's a great example Margot - I'd never heard of this author so I just looked him up, and he had some intriguing titles - Babe Ruth Caught in a Snowstorm and The Aldeburgh Cezanne caught my eye - but it's really hard to find the books or find out more about them. They have disappeared. You will have to tell the world more about the books...

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  2. Mary Stewart and Norah Lofts.

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    1. Yes exactly - as I read the words I could see examples of their paperback covers in my head. A very recognizable style. The hairstyles on those cover heroines...

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    2. And the floaty nightgowns in which they were fleeing a gloomy mansion with a light burning in a solitary window.

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    3. Yes indeed. Perhaps holding up a candlestick with a short dripping candle in it?

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  3. As well as Flowers In The Attic, we used to pass round Princess Daisy by Judith Krantz, and Lace by Shirley Conran at school, with much giggling as we read the naughty bits. I also remember books by Danielle Steele being everywhere.

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    1. Oh yes, perfect examples. The paperbacks fell open at the key pages after a while. I remember the boys at the neighbouring school pretending they were above such things but actually they were dying to read the good bits.

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  4. As for bestsellers that won't last, it's hard to suggest books without implicitly being rude about them, but I suspect The Salt Path will be one of them, along with The Island by Victoria Hislop, and Where The Crawdads Sing.

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  5. Do you mean Richard Jefferies? Quite a few of his books are still in print. I'd especially recommend Amaryllis at the Fair and the first four chapters of After London, which were published in one volume by Everyman and Edward Thomas's biography.

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    1. Of course I did, and I have corrected above, but you are the only person who would notice!
      I am prejudiced against him, I find him very hard going (but still should try to get his name right).
      Amaryllis sounds very Cold Comfort Farm....

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    2. Amaryllis is low-key consumptive - like Jefferies himself - rather than Cold Comfort's OTT mania, but is a good portrait of a doomed family and way of life.
      The opening chapters of After London describe the reversion of England to wilderness - powerful wish-fulfilment for Jefferies.

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    3. I wish I could say that your description is tempting me to give him another go....
      Perhaps if those books are in the next 2nd-hand shop I visit.

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  6. Joseph Goodrich7 March 2024 at 21:35

    One used to find copies of ACT ONE, Moss Hart's memoir of his start in the American Theatre, at every rummage sale. The same held true for Richard Adams' WATERSHIP DOWN and Clive Cussler's RAISE THE TITANIC, and Thomas Tryon's THE OTHER. Of slightly more recent vintage is Frank McCourt's ANGELA'S ASHES.

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    1. Oh excellent additions to the list, those are names to conjure with. I had forgotten all about Thomas Tryon. I can see all these on the shelf.

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  7. Do historical novels suffer this fate (being bestsellers at first and then entirely forgotten within a generation or two) more often than "straight" novels? Quo Vadis? from 1895 by Henryk Sienkiewicz (who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1905) was on my parents' bookshelf and was apparently a bestseller in its time. Forever Amber from 1944 by Kathleen Winsor was still quite popular when I was a teenager in the late 60s and early 70s, as was Desirée from 1951 by Annemarie Selinko. I suspect that I might find them painfully bad if I read them now, but they taught me a lot of history - as did Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind from 1936.

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    1. That's a good point, and fits in with one of my pet theories, which is that historical novels are about the time they were written in rather than when they are set (and this goes double for children's historical fiction). Was just discussing the film of Quo Vadis the other day - we were shown it at school: presumably it was hard to find a respectable film that would span a large age group. So we had that, and The Robe - similar - and Inn of the Sixth Happiness, also based on a book that was in 2nd hand shops.
      And yes Forever Amber, very much so. (I once bought a 2nd-hand copy of that, and it turned out to be only vol 2 of 2, which was extremely annoying). I don't know Desiree, will look it up.

      But you would say that Gone With the Wind has survived I think? not a lost bestseller. What makes one succeed where another fails...

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    2. Isn't it the film that makes the title Gone with the Wind survive? The name Clark Gable springs a lot more readily to mind than that of Margaret Mitchell.
      Clare

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    3. I learned all the history of the French Revolution that stuck with me from Desirée. And Judith Krantz was definitely a guilty pleasure in my late teens.

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    4. Clare: that's a good point, though I still think the book survives! The fact that she only wrote one book is a classic quiz question...
      I always like this story about Kathleen Winsor: 'she became the sixth wife of the big-band leader and clarinetist Artie Shaw, despite the fact that two years previously Shaw had castigated his then-wife, Ava Gardner, for reading such a "trashy novel" as Forever Amber.'

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    5. Dame Eleanor: I am now even more determined to find Desiree!

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  8. This may be controversial but I would say books by Ernest Hemingway

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    1. Yes I'm with you there. He still has the reputation status, but do people still read him?

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    2. I do reread his short stories occasionally, although I sometimes wish I could reach into the pages and smack him one.

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    3. Very fair comment. I did not feel he was a person who ever understood anything about women though he didn't have any trouble attracting them.

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  9. OMG - The Whiteoaks of Jalna!!! They were huge once... 1920s though 1940s and on... Then in the late sixties, early seventies, reissued in Pan paperbacks. Lots and lots in the library. Yes, Canadian saga (though strongly leaning on the English settler tradition) and publishing phenomenon.

    So, in my late teens, early twenties, I LOVED those books, and in 1971, according to my exhaustive book catalogue, I bought ALL SIXTEEN of them, many of them in hardback from secondhand bookshops in Toronto and Vancouver. I read them again and again. I still have them, though I have to say, they're on the shelves in my basement now, unread for decades (more on that below)

    In my mid-twenties, I lived in the area west of Toronto (Clarkson, at the time) where Mazo de la Roche had lived and flourished in the first half of the 20th c. And, not far away, stood the old historic home, Benares, that she'd used as the protype of Jalna.

    All of this is probably yawn-making to everyone (sorry), since no one under, oh, 60?, has heard of them now. As for me, though I have many books from the past I continue to reread and love, I long ago decided that I could just love the Whiteoak family in rose-tinted memory, rather than return to them on the page.

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    1. This is riveting, not yawn-making! I knew someone was reading them, and they were obviously very popular in the UK too. In the picture at the top, there's a book on the right called Young Renny, and I had a complete flashback, that little spine illo of the woman with the hawk (I presume) - I don't think I ever read it, but it must have been next to something on a shelf that I did read! It was so familiar...

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    2. Adeline, the matriarch, with her parrot, uh.... Boney! I'd forgotten that till you pointed it out. Bonaparte.

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    3. It's a parrot! I had no idea. I can quite see I am going to have to read one of these books.

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  10. In India, we would find books by Paul Scott, especially the four books comprising his Raj Quartet. James Hadley Chase was also very popular.

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    1. Thank you, that's really interesting that those books were popular in India. They definitely had a moment in the UK but you don't see them now so much. And yes, James Hadley Chase, very much so. Some books, when I see the title I have a total flash as to their style of covers, and that's what I get with JHC.

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  11. Every second-hand bookshop of any size seems to have at least one copy of Clochemerle by Gabriel Chevallier, almost always in the classic orange striped Penguin edition. I don't know whether it counts as lost though - still in print, as is Mary Stewart (mentioned above).

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    1. Oh yes, totally agree, again I had an instant picture, and exactly that edition. Although I think there was a TV version in in the 60s/70s, so a reissue with a still from the show.
      I'm surprised it's still in print, but I still consider it to be forgotten.

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  12. I suspect a number of the thriller writers I liked in my youth are much less popular now, like Desmond Bagely or Alistair Maclean.

    Maybe the Twiligt saga won't achieve classic status.

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    1. Yes, there were rows of them, also Victor Canning, Wilbur Smith, Gavin Lyall. I always said they wre the paperbacks people's Dad's had on their shelves. I loved Alastair MacLean, I recently reread Where Eagles Dare in fact, and watched the film. ( I was on a Richard Burton jag)
      Good call on Twilight.

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    2. I used to read Gavin Lyall, Desmond Bagley and Alistair Maclean. I thought Maclean had died and been continued by another hand, but sadly he just took to drink and the novels fell off.

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    3. Oh I thought the same. I loved Maclean particularly, something about his self-deprecating heroes. Gavin Lyall was married to Katherine Whitehorn whom I always greatly admired - did you know her at all, I feel you might have overlapped? I still cherish Cooking in a Bedsitter, not for the recipes but for the chat and advice

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  13. Howard Spring and Nevil Shute come to mind - both huge in the 1950s when my mum collected their complete works in a variety of Book Club and Reprint Society editions. They all had to go when she moved into a small flat recently, and a quick look on a couple of book-buying websites made it clear that she'd struggle to GIVE them away.
    Sovay

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    1. Pity, I've always found Shute very readable.

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    2. Oh yes, to both of those. And you raise a very interesting point about the Book Clubs - those familiar sets that everyone had. Eric von Daniken's Chariots of the Gods.
      Not book clubs - Erica Jong and Fear of Flying - such a bestseller in its day, has it disappeared completely?

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    3. Shay: I agree on Shute, and am surprisied to see I have never blogged on any of his books. He wrote very entertainingly, and although he had some 'views of his time', he also had some surprisingly modern lines of thought, that really interested me and impressed me.
      I will have to dig one out....

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    4. I read and (as far as I recall) enjoyed a couple of Mum's Nevil Shutes when I was in my teens - A Town Like Alice was one of them, the other might have been No Highway. I should give him another try. Never managed to make any headway at all with Howard Spring.

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    5. Yes I read Town Like Alice, which was very good, and one called Requiem for a Wren, which was also good and rather unusual and affecting. I also read one about technical aspects of aeroplanes (I believe he was an expert) which was less compelling.

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    6. I liked Requiem for a Wren very much. On the Beach is the one that everybody's read, but Pied Piper is unexpectedly touching.

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    7. Oh well I know which one to read next then! I've just looked it up - quite the plot....

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    8. Pied Piper is excellent. There was also a film which I have not seen but is available on YouTube I believe. Don’t know how good it was. I recently read Shute’s Trustee from the Toolroom, an odd little book, but strangely moving.

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    9. So now I've just looked Trustee up too, it sounds very strange but very compelling. You are adding to the already unmanageable list, as you always do....

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    10. There was a recent Backlisted podcast on Trustee from the Toolroom.

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    11. I will look it up. Great title!

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  14. How about Dornford Yates? My grandfather had a shelf full of them; I never read them but was later told they were racist. Also, Baroness Orczy - I loved the Scarlet Pimpernel when I was a child but I don't suppose anyone reads them anymore?

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    1. Oh yes Dornford Yates, I did try one but couldn't really get on with it. I always associate also with the Bulldog Drummond books by Sapper.
      My good friend Chrissie, writer Christine Poulson, is a great fan of the Scarlet Pimpernel, you are not alone! She has been trying to persuade me to read it and I haven't quite got round to it, but obviously I should. And you and Chrissie should compare notes... she'll be delighted to find another fan.

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    2. The Scarlet Pimpernel was my first (literary) crush!

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    3. Literary crushes is a whole other, and tempting, subject. I was very keen on Heathcliff, had to grow out of that idea. And also Biggles.

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    4. People thought Dornford Yates was a marvellous stylist – that's what makes him unreadable. I did read some at school and yes they're racist. The characters are rude to non-English characters in a supposedly witty manner that makes it all the more repulsive.

      Here's a sample of Yates: As we leaned easily upon the giant parapet of the Admiralty Pier, watching the tireless waves dance to the cappriccio of wind and sun, there was but little evidence to show that the portcullis, recently hoist, had for four years been down. Under the shadow of the Shakespeare Cliff the busy traffic of impatient Peace fretted as heretofore.

      Didn't Martin Edwards remark in passing that some GAD writers adopted the fustian style of the 1880s?

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    5. Yes indeed. Doesn't survive well. I always thought the much-admired travel writer Robert Byron was the same, he sounds ghastly.
      Very interesting comment from Martin...

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  15. The Jalna books were staples in my home growing up, my grandmother loved them. I once had the entire set, and still regretting getting rid of them. They are fascinating.
    I would suggest Henry Williamson for your list. His Flax of Dream, and Chronicles of Ancient Sunlight collections. They are very good for historical background- the details of pre and post WW1 London and rural life. Also lyrical. The best of the man went to his writing, I gather. And of course, there is gloomy old Steinbeck, D H Lawrence, H E Bates- they were all charity shop staples years ago.
    I still look for the 3 Gs in charity shops (Gardam, Godden, Goudge). I think Jane Gardam will be one for your 'doomed' list. Along with Jilly Cooper.

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    1. I am wondering if I should try one of the Jalna books - I'm quite surprised that I never did.
      Henry Williamson I suppose has been 'cancelled' in a sense because of his political views? I remember not being very taken with Tarka the Otter, so never went further, but you interest me with the idea of a picture of london life.
      I still think of Steinbeck and Lawrence as classics! Are they taught to lit students? Bates not so much.
      Who survives and who doesn't is such an interesting subject. I would say Godden and Goudge came close to sinking, but are having a moment again? Virago and Persephone help.

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  16. These names are very familiar to me . We had a shop that sold, amongst other things ,books. Mostly paperbacks . Many of our sales of these was to sailors . Some bought individual books for themselves and quite a few bought in bulk and then would charge their shipmates when they borrowed them on board ship. The slightly racy ones as mentioned above went well along with JT Edson and other “cowboy “ authors. My own reading included Somerset Maugham, Delderfield, Shute,Howard Spring, A.J. Cronin,
    JB Priestly, Warwick Deeping ,Noel Streatfeild, Georgette Heyer, EM Delafield, And absolutely loads of others of the same vintage. Some I borrowed from lending libraries bit Public and private ( thanking you Boots) but the vast majority were / are bought from second hand bookshops. Oh,the joy of finding a book, new to you, written by a favourite author at a price you could afford!

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    1. Oh your comment sent waves of nostalgia over me, what a list of names, and how fascinating about your shop. JT Edson I haven't thought about in a long time but I had many of his books. I loved them so much that I once wrote to him and he *sent me a free book* - and turned out to be an Englishmen with a varied industrious life, and not at all a cowboy ranging around the USA on horses. He seemed rather like my Dad.

      And yes, this post has reminded me of the joy that books have always given me, including the delight of finding a book you know you will love, cheap on a shelf (counting out the pennies), or free in the library. And the joy of finding a new author who had written a long list of books.

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    2. ... and the sadness of discovering a new author that you love, and finding that they wrote four books and then went and died!
      Sovay

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    3. oh yes, that was hard to forgive!

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  17. So much enjoying this post and the comments. Forever Amber came to my mind, too, and what about Peyton Place! Chrissie

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    1. Chrissie I hope you saw the comment above from Ann Phillips - someone else who loves the Scarlet Pimpernel!
      Oh yes, Petyon PLace which links in my mind with Valley of the Dolls. And then later those Shirley Conran books, Lace.
      I once picked up a book listing NYTimes bestsellers during the 20th century - and remember the big surprise was how many one had never heard of. I must see if I can find the book.

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  18. Susanna Tayler9 March 2024 at 19:49

    In 1995, every charity shop in Stratford had at least one copy of "Love Over Gold", the novelisation of the Gold Blend coffee ads. (I was 16, on a school trip and we were allowed to wander round the town for a bit before seeing Richard III). I don't imagine Love Over Gold was ever a bestseller, more bought as a bit of a joke and got rid of quickly at a very brief point in time.

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    1. Excellent contribution - I wasn't aware of that at all, but of course someone will have had that bright idea.
      And the charity shop volunteers must have groaned when certain books turned up.
      From maybe 20 years earlier - Jonathan Livingston Seagull, and Love Story. Bought, maybe as a gift, read or not read, off to the charity shop.

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  19. For authors of my youth who filled secondhand shelves I nominate Morris West and R.F. Delderfield. I think Delderfield still reads well and regret he has faded away.

    For the present surely not John Grisham! I think he will be the Earle Stanley Gardner of our generation and be read into the future.

    I am surprised no one has mentioned James Patterson and his collaborators. Perhaps the sheer volume of his/their work will keep him from being lost.

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    1. Both those authors were on my parents' or other relatives' shelves. Morris West had a Catholic slant didn't he, which would appeal to my family.
      I would always respect your view of books with a legal setting, so will believe you that Grisham will survive.
      And yes Patterson - so many books! And the co-authoring.
      Also - Stephen King now I come to think of it.

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  20. How about ... Paul Gallico, Madeline Brent, Elizabeth Peters, Zane Gray, Ellswyth Thane (the racism though). And everyone used to have those volumes of Reader's Digest condensed books. My mom loved the Jalna books, but I couldn't get into them. I reread The Scarlet Pimpernel recently and it was just as delightful as I remembered!

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    1. So most of those deeply familiar, but Ellswyth Thane not at all - I just looked her up and very much an American bestseller, but I was surprised I hadn't come across her.
      Madeline Brent rang a bell, and I looked at the list of books and had definitely read some of them - was surprised to find out they were written by a man, Peter O'Donnell, who also wrote Modesty Blaise.
      And yes - Readers Digest Condensed! I think some charity shops refused them...

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  21. Blue Skies, No Candy, by Gael Greene. Runaway bestseller published 1976 and full of erotic fantasy (and heck, erotic reality) that was pretty explicit for its time. Probably much-shared and dog-eared by teenage girls. I was already out of my teens but felt self-conscious about buying it. How'd I get rid of it? I dunno, did I donate it to the church rummage sale?

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    1. I remember seeing that one but never read it. It's a good idea to appeal to sex-starved teens to create a bestseller, but they do tend to share and pass around their books.
      I was once in my aunt's house where my cousins were having a clearout, and I heard my aunt in the other room saying 'you can't give that to a Catholic jumble sale!' and I had to dash in to look to see what this could be, and, exactly, it was a book my aunt considered too risque....

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  22. "Kon-Tiki" by Thor Heyerdahl?

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    1. Yes the absolute archetype of books that were on the shelf - there was also one by him called Aku Aku. Both curiously untempting.

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  23. Another forgotten author - Pearl S Buck, who was hugely popular around the 1930s. She won the Pulitzer Prize for The Good Earth (I have read this, so no-one else has to, for which you should be very grateful, because I can only wonder what the other novels published at the time were like if this was considered to be the best on offer!). She was also awarded a Nobel Prize for Literature for, I believe, her portrayal of Chinese peasants.

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    1. Oh well done, yes, very much so. I have always thought I ought to read it, and now don't need to, so yes I am grateful! And it was made into a film with Western actors and won Oscars I believe. And many copies of the book were/are in existence.... My Granny read it I believe.

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  24. This is fascinating! I read quite a few Jalna books when I was young but when I tried them again recently, I couldn't get interested. They get a mention in Nancy Mitford's The Blessing, where the Parisian ladies have missed Jalna during the war and want to know what has been happening.
    I'd read most of Dornford Yates books when I was about twelve, simply because I read anything in the house. I have a full set! Also on those shelves, which I'd add to the 'no one reads anymore' list were Norman Collins and J B Priestley. Anyone remember Mrs Robert Henrey? The Thor Heyerdal books which someone mentioned, I read when my mother had them from the library. I shouldn't think anyone reads those now. Mum also used to borrow all David Attenborough's Zoo Trek books.
    I suppose now he's a national treasure there might be a revival of interest?
    I'm surprised to see Mary Stewart on someone's list. I still enjoy her books and have got my daughter into them, too. And Nevil Shute? There's a very active society devoted to his works.

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    1. Love the Mitford connection, I'd missed that.
      I have done a couple of Priestleys and a couple of Collins books on the blog, but both are pretty much under the radar these days. Mrs Robert Henrey a new name to me, I must look her up.
      Mary Stewart and Neille Shute are both still read but I think not by new generations, except in rare cases like yours where you enlighten your family. I hope they will have an upswing at some point.

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  25. Elswyth Thane is one of my favorite authors and while I realize her portrayal of happy slaves is very offensive now, it seems unfair to blame her for what her Southern characters are articulating prior to the Civil War as most people were not abolitionists. She was married to the Jacques Cousteau of her day and he was apparently a charismatic jerk. Next time I come to England I am bringing you a Thane to read, Moira! There are some great clothes and Eden in the second book smuggles drugs in her hoop skirt, as I recall.

    Back to the bookshelves - I'd add Dorothy Eden, Frances Parkinson Keyes, M.M. Kaye, and Evelyn Anthony to those shelves, although I like all but Eden in moderation and always stop to check which ones I haven't read. (Side note, I once brought Never Call It Loving by Dorothy Eden home from the school library and my mother picked it up and read it while I was doing my algebra, and her face grew more and more appalled. She said she appreciated light fiction as much as anyone but I could do better. I didn't read another Eden until the pandemic when I was desperate but there was an impersonation one I quite liked.)

    When I worked in publishing, the success of every book was measured by how many we sold in to the various retail outlets and how many sold through (i.e., were not returned). We used to joke about several books that had very high sell-through and very low read-through, and I see these books at library book sales and used bookstores often: A Brief History of Time, The Name of the Rose, and The Satanic Verses.

    Books for the future "no one reads" shelves: Kate Morton, Jodi Picoult, and Danielle Steele.

    Constance

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    1. Oh, all fascinating, I thought of Frances Parkinson Keyes too! and there's a UK author called Francis Brett Young - they are quite different but I muddle them in my head, and they are both names that appear on dusty spines.

      I will have to look up Dorothy Eden now...
      I love the idea of high sell-through, low read-through: we all recognize that.

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  26. I adored Jean Plaidy/Victoria Holt in high school. In fact, I was at a second-hand bookstore on Friday, and there were several Jean Plaidys!
    Also Phyllis A. Whitney, who wrote romantic suspense. Black Amber was my personal favorite. Oddly enough, my university's library had it in their juvenile collection, which I didn't think was really a children's book!
    I think Judith Krantz is a good example of this. I haven't read one in a while, but they were certainly wildly popular in their time. Shirley Conran and Jilly Cooper as well. Oh, and Jackie Collins, of course.
    Who else? Erica Jong's Fear of Flying was all over, haven't seen it in years though.



    You

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    1. Gah, this was me posting but I forgot to add my name!

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    2. Thanks Aurora, and yes to all. Jilly Cooper still going strong - I reviewed her latest book for a newspaper last year - but the rest are sinking. I'd completely forgotten Phyllis Whitney, but as soon as I read the words I had a very clear image of a cover...

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  27. I've loved reading all the comments - so many books which I remember my mum having when I was a child - mostly Book Club editions. I never read the Jalna ones, but I do remember enjoying Peridot Flight by Doris Leslie

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    1. I've loved it too! Isn't it amazing how a book you have not thought about in 20 years is suddenly fully in your mind, cover and all? I looked up Doris Leslie, and found there was a 10-part BBC TV series of the book you mention, in 1960. She wrote a lot of historical novels... I might try to find Peridot.

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  28. Arthur Hailey and Thomas B. Costain come first to mind. Perennial bestsellers through the 'fifties and 'sixties, this was to be expected, I suppose. Curiously, I rarely saw Mazo de la Roche, but bought them when I did. This may have something to do with living in Montreal and Vancouver, and not Southern Ontario. Geography seemed to have some effect. In Montreal, copies of Lionel Shapiro's The Sixth of June (Montreal writer) Gwethalyn Graham's Earth and High Heaven (Montreal writer, Montreal setting) were plentiful.

    Returning to Mazo de la Roche, I wonder whether anyone remembers the CBC's ill-fated 1972 Whiteoaks of Jalna miniseries? Kate Reid in a 'seventies caftan is something not to be forgotten.

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    1. Oh yes, Arthur Hailey! they were very popular. Thomas B Costain I think of The Silver Chalice?
      Those Mazo de la Roche books were very very popular in the UK, and in Ireland too apparently, so they did travel. I will have to look up your Montreal books!

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  29. How about Jerard Tickell

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    1. When I looked I recognized quite a few of his books, Odette particularly. The very epitome of someone who was obviously very famous and successful and productive in his day, but has now just about disappeared...

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  30. This is a totally brilliant thread which I still haven’t finished reading. So many book memories for me (a total bookaholic all my life). My father and much older sister were great readers too. I was going to start listing all the many books which I remember from our shelves at home, the library etc but as this would take me weeks and weeks…… I don’t know if anyone has mentioned Richmal Crompton’s books for adults which have recently been re-released. I discovered one in our local library when I was about 14/15. It was about a teacher and was so moving. Sorry, am hopeless at remembering titles. I was born in 1947. I love this site. Thank you to everyone.

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    1. Thank you, it is so nice for me to get a comment like this. I still can't take in how many people enjoyed and responded to this post, and the list of authors mentioned is invaluable.
      I haven't read Richmal Crompton's adult books, but I have heard good things about them, and must find one to read.
      Lovely to have you here!

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  31. My TBR is HUGE so I will admit I spend very little time in second hand bookstores, libraries etc. I do subscribe to publishers like Persephone books, who republish many of the authours that might be found in places under different jackets etc, but I have a thing for the greys! Authours I can think of who might start turning up (apart from the ones mentioned|) would include Bill Brydon; Terry Pratchett (I hope!); maybe one of the Pythons, like Michael Palin;

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    1. I so agree with you about Persephone - great books and they look lovely!
      And I'm sure you're right about the authors who will be on the charity shop shelves.

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  32. I should be very unhappy to see Jane Gardam go to the unread shelf as was suggested above.
    But I nominate James Michener!

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    1. I like Jane Gardam very much, but is she read much now? it will be ineresting to see if there is a revival.
      James Michener very much the Man on the Shelf. I definitely associate him with holiday cottages, where people spent a week reading a blockbuster then left it behind.

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