The Mystery of the Silver Spider

I always associate The Mystery of the Silver Spider with Saturday nights. In early 1977, as my Three Investigators collection was getting under way, I went to Woolworth’s in Paisley with my mum one Saturday afternoon to see which three Armada books would be for sale that month. One of them was Silver Spider. In the evening, I went to the café across the street with my dad. He always bought us sweets and things on Saturday evenings, and we would all watch TV together. But that night I had other plans. I bought some crisps, chocolate and 2 ounces of mint imperials. While the rest of the family stayed in the living room watching the telly, I went to my bed to read, as had become the norm for me on the days that I bought new books.

Written by Robert Arthur and published in 1967, Silver Spider is the eighth book in the series and is different from the others in that it is the only story that involves the boys leaving the USA. The story begins in Los Angeles, with Worthington almost crashing into the car of Prince Djaro of the fictional European country of Varania, which Bob describes as “one of the seven smallest countries in the world”. Although Djaro has not been officially crowned, everyone calls him Prince. As he is still a teenager, he befriends the investigators and changes his plans so that he can visit Disneyland, inviting them to go with him. After a fun afternoon, Djaro takes his leave of the boys, feeling that they are real friends and hoping they will meet again.

A few days later, Alfred Hitchcock telephones to say that the boys are in for a surprise and that he has had a very long talk with their future visitor but is sworn to secrecy. During the call, Aunt Mathilda announces that the visitor has arrived, and they rush out to meet Bert Young, a government agent. He tells the boys that Djaro has invited them to his coronation and that the government will pay all their expenses. Jupiter is suspicious, stating that “governments aren’t generous that way”. Mr Young tells them that he wants them to act as junior agents. Something is afoot in Varania, and the government is anxious to know what is going on. Satisfied that they are not being asked to spy on Prince Djaro, the boys agree.

In Varania, they stay at Djaro’s palace, a draughty three-hundred room house built on the ruins of an old castle. They discover that Duke Stefan, the regent, wants to prevent the coronation and stay in power, working with a crime syndicate to make the country a haven for crooks and illegal gamblers. The Silver Spider, the most treasured jewel in the land and which must be worn by the prince on his coronation, is stolen and planted in the boys’ room. This will allow Duke Stefan to accuse Djaro of being incompetent, befriending and welcoming thieves. Bob hides the spider and the investigators flee, aided by a group called the Minstrels, who want to save Djaro from his evil guardian. Bob bumps his head and cannot remember where he hid the Silver Spider. The story is fast-paced and exciting and includes a chase through the city’s storm sewers. Jupiter devises a plan to save Djaro and finds the lost spider that Bob hid so cleverly, although he cannot remember doing so. Duke Stefan’s plans are foiled, the coronation goes ahead as planned and Djaro bestows the Order of the Silver Spider on his friends before they return home as honorary citizens of Varania.

Forty-three years on, I can still recall the thrills I felt as I read this story. Dramatic chases through the castle, a daring escape from the dungeons and pursuit through the storm sewers with the palace guards hot on the trail, and Bob’s amnesia after hiding the Silver Spider, making him unable to remember where he put it. The boys are also issued with special cameras that have walkie-talkie equipment and a tape recorder built into them so that they can contact Bert young at the American embassy – very advanced gadgetry deserving of Q Branch. All of these aspects made me love the story, and it always makes me think of Saturday nights and mint imperials!

Years later, when I surfed my way through T3I websites, I was surprised at how low this story ranked in the opinion of other readers. Of the Robert Arthur books, it was rated bottom. People complained about the “fake” feel of Varania and how the plot was not very imaginative. I couldn’t disagree more. To me, it was a great story and the source of one of my happiest moments, an example of my favourite German word, Sehnsucht, a feeling that combines longing, yearning and joy. The other day I shared a post on Facebook that one of the greatest pleasures in life is to read a book in total silence. I think that night with Silver Spider was my first such experience.   

The front cover of the Armada edition that was used for most of the seventies shows a scene from Chapter 12, Into the Storm Sewers. Jupiter and Rudy overpower the guards and tie them up after Bob feigns illness.

The Mystery of the Creep-Show Crooks

Forty years ago, I read my first Three Investigators book. Now I have just finished reading my last one, The Mystery of the Creep-Show Crooks, by M. V. Carey. I'm glad that this particular story was last on my list rather than one of Ms. Carey's duds like Wandering Caveman. It's an interesting story. The boys find a bag on the beach containing make-up and a teddy bear made of real fur and set out to track down the owner. The girl turns out to be a runaway who came to Hollywood with dreams of being an actress. The boys track her down for her parents without much difficulty, but she doesn't want to go home. Then she disappears. Burglaries are taking place, even at the Jones house, where Aunt Mathilda is locked in a cupboard. A lot of detective work uncovers a money laundering scheme and the location of the kidnapped girl, with Worthington aiding a dramatic rescue. It was a good story with interesting crooks. However, unlike most of the investigators' past enemies, the crooks in this story are just stupid. They are very clumsy in their criminal activities and even store evidence against themselves in their car instead of getting rid of it. All in all, a good read and a fun way to end the series. As I've written before, The Three Investigators are very important to me. In childhood I read their books over and over. There were some disappointing stories along the way (Coughing Dragon, Nervous Lion, Phantom Lake) but there was never anything better in my reading experience than getting my hands on a well written story about Jupe, Pete and Bob. The anticipation of looking at the titles and having to wait for them to appear at Woolworth's or John Menzies. I still recall how it seemed to take forever for The Mystery of the Whispering Mummy and The Mystery of the Green Ghost to appear on the shelves, and how wonderful it was to read them when I got them at last. Now I've read all 43. Mission accomplished.

The Four Loves

"What were the women doing meanwhile? How should I know? I am a man and never spied on the mysteries of the Bona Dea." I first read this light-hearted quote from The Four Loves in Humphrey Carpenter's biography of Tolkien back in 1986. But in all these years, I had never come across a copy of this book by C. S. Lewis until April this year at Waterstone's bookshop in Ayr. Several Lewis books had been reissued in new paperback editions. I decided to buy two of them: The Four Loves and Surprised by Joy. I read the latter first. It was a bit heavy at times but on the whole I liked it. I began to read the former in May and had been reading it on and off until yesterday. After looking forward to it for years, I found it a bit disappointing. Too much rambling and padding to state the obvious in some cases; too didactic and dictatorial in others. Lewis talks a great deal about marriage. As in some of his other books, marriage is seen as an important institution that he compares with the relationship between Christ and the Church. And yet he later married Joy Davidman so that she could remain in England, telling a friend that "the marriage was a pure matter of friendship and expediency". Hardly a suitable role model for his readers. I find it hard to understand the purpose that this book serves, although I do understand the original intention behind it: to analyze how we relate to different people in different ways and put labels on these relationships. The premise is good and he tells us that with other people we have Affection, Friendship, Eros and Charity. He talks of simple pleasures, such as seeing the word GENTLEMEN above a door when nature calls. But these amusing notes dwindle as the book progresses. There are some passages that make the reader pause for consideration. For instance, he warns against refusing to love in order to protect yourself: "There is no escape along the lines St. Augustine suggests. Nor along any other lines. There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal" (Pg. 147). But for every such nugget, there is too much padding and imposition from the author. It may be that the book is a bit above my head and that I just find it hard to follow his arguments because I cannot match him in intellect. He seems to be treading too fine a line as he stumbles through the definitions he is trying to make and the labels he creates for them. The words "of course" are used a lot, as he lays down the law. I didn't enjoy this book as much as I expected I would. Maybe a collection of quotations from it would go down better. The next Lewis book on my list is Mere Christianity. Here's hoping...

The Mystery of the Trail of Terror

It was a cold, wet and miserable day yesterday and work was slow. In the late afternoon, I decided to start a new book, one of the two original Three Investigators books I had yet to read. The Mystery of the Trail of Terror is the thirty-ninth in the series and probably the shortest. Pete’s grandfather, Mr. Ben Peck, is an inventor, but he is also impetuous and quick to anger. He has a feud with his neighbour, a Mr. Ed Snabel. Mrs. Crenshaw “hires” the investigators to accompany (i.e., keep an eye on) her father on a cross-country trip by car to New York City, where he wants to find a backer for his latest invention. Mr. Peck is happy to have the boys go with him and they set off at a leisurely pace, making lots of stops along the way. However, to their surprise, they come across Snabel. Mr. Peck and the boys are convinced that he is out to steal the invention. But no matter what they do and how devious a route they take, Snabel always finds them. There is also a gang of bikers on the roads that wants to make trouble. The adventure rolls along, taking the party through clashes with the bikers, a dramatic fire at a hotel and an attempted kidnapping. There is also the impending danger of Snabel stealing the invention. Mr. Peck refuses to tell the boys what the invention is and does not seem particularly worried about it being stolen, which appears out of keeping with his character. Jupiter, in one of the rare pieces of actual investigating in the story, works out that Snabel is not interested in the invention and deduces that he is actually after Bob’s camera. Snabel had an identical camera and in a confusing scene, they ended up being switched. Snabel is a spy and when they finally reach a big city, Mr. Peck seeks out the FBI. The story proceeds to a fairly exciting climax, with rides on the New York subway and the capture of Snabel. When the boys meet Hector Sebastian at the end of the story, they reveal what Mr. Peck’s invention was and why he wasn’t worried about it being stolen: he had mailed it to his hotel before setting out!

This is quite a good story, but it hinges too much on coincidence. That Snabel and the tour party would turn up at the most unlikely spot together, Pismo Beach, is hard to accept. Snabel, who has to hand a roll of film to another spy, would be unlikely to travel such a far distance to deliver his package out in the open. That could have been better contrived. It takes Jupiter a long time to work out how Snabel manages to follow them, finally arriving at the conclusion that he was using a homing device. As the boys had used homing devices themselves on so many cases, it’s strange that he doesn’t hit on such an obvious solution long before. Jupiter certainly does not show much mental prowess in this story and Bob doesn’t do any research. The book is more of an adventure story than a detective novel. But the characterisation is good. The peppery Mr. Peck is a lot of fun and the crooks are passable. There are holes in the plot, it’s true, but on the whole it’s not a bad book. M. V. Carey had reached an all-time low with The Mystery of the Wandering Caveman in 1982. The following year she had redeemed herself with The Mystery of the Missing Mermaid. Trail of Terror was one of three books published in 1984, the others being The Mystery of the Two-Toed Pigeon by Marc Brandel, and The Mystery of the Smashing Glass by William Arden. Now I have only one 3I book to read, The Mystery of the Creep Show Crooks by M. V. Carey, published in 1985.

Lady Chatterley's Lover

It’s funny how you can wake up one morning not even aware of something and yet by the end of the day you are absorbed in it. On Monday morning, a Brazilian bank holiday, I logged on to Yahoo News and saw that the top search of the day was Lady Chatterley’s Lover. I think the BBC had made a new dramatization of it. It was then that I realized I had never read this book. I often quote Mark Twain, who once said that a classic is something everybody wants to have read but nobody wants to read. I tend to agree. People like to display their erudition by discussing Shakespeare or the Brontë sisters, but few people actually want to take the time required to read these hefty works. And yet, I had just finished reading Villlette which, although heavy going, was a very satisfying read. So I took the plunge and downloaded Lady Chatterley’s Lover. I read it in less than twenty-four hours. It is not a difficult book to read and the tale is quite simple. The story begins after the Great War. Sir Clifford Chatterley returns from France badly injured and paralyzed from the waist down. His wife, Connie, sticks by him, but ends up having affairs. She is particularly drawn to the estate’s gamekeeper, Mr Mellors. They handle the affair quite clumsily and Sir Clifford’s nurse discovers it in no time, but keeps quiet. Connie is pregnant and goes to Italy to pretend that the baby was conceived there. Clifford has said he doesn’t mind her providing an heir to the estate but he has no idea that his wife is involved with a gamekeeper. Sir Clifford is an elitist and snob and makes no effort to hide his disdain for the lower classes. Connie tires of all the rigmarole and confesses the affair. She had been worried about her good name, etc., but cannot bear to be married to Clifford anymore and throws caution to the wind. Mellors’s former wife turns up to make trouble, but after a lot of scandalous behaviour, she disappears. Mellors gets his divorce but Sir Clifford refuses to divorce his wife. The story ends on this note, but with Mellors assuring Connie that they will be together and that Sir Clifford will yield eventually.

The story is well written and interesting. It addresses social class and conflict and some passages are devoted to arguing about the idea of living an intellectual life. However, what made the book infamous was its sexual content. The book was published in 1928 and the controversy raged on for decades, culminating in an “obscenity” trial against Penguin Books in 1960. This trial pushed back the boundaries on what publishers could release in print. The Obscene Publications Act of 1959 stated that explicit content could be published if it were possible to prove that the work had literary merit. Many publishers around the world had only dared to issue heavily edited or abridged versions of the book. The trial was a huge victory for Penguin. The chief prosecutor made a terrible faux pas when he addressed the court saying that Lacy Chatterley was not a book that one would wish one’s “wife or servants to read”. This made him look very old-fashioned and behind the times. However, by today’s standards, the sexual content seems quite tame or even run-of-the-mill. Sir Clifford, commenting on the scandalous accusations made by Bertha Mellors against her husband, remarks that his gamekeeper liked to “use his wife in the Italian way”. Mellors tells Connie that she has “got the nicest arse of anybody… An’ ivery bit of it is woman, woman as sure as nuts. Tha’rt not one of the buttonarse lasses as should be lads… An if that shits an’ tha pisses, I’m glad. I don’t want a woman as couldna shit nor piss”. The C-word and the F-word are used, not liberally, but they are used. Mellors tells the impotent Sir Clifford: “Folks should do their own fuckin’, then they wouldn’t want to listen to a lot of clatfart about another man’s… It’s not for a man in the shape you’re in, Sir Clifford, to twit me for havin’ a cod atween my legs”. Shocking, especially for the time. However, the court ruled that this work had literary merit, so publication went ahead. I quite liked the story, although some of the characters are a bit stereotypical: the snooty Sir Clifford, Connie’s sceptical Scottish father who accepts Mellors after downing a few glasses of whisky with him, Connie’s disapproving sister Hilda and the prude working class people in the nearby town. But it is an entertaining story. However, it doesn’t really merit all the attention it has garnered in my opinion. It’s amazing what a bit of sex can do.

David Herbert Lawrence (1885-1930) was born in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire. Despite not being from an academic family, he became a teacher and won a prize for a short story in the early 1900s. Ill health, which plagued him all his life, forced his to resign his teaching post in 1912. After the Great War, he and his wife travelled extensively. However, his health continued to deteriorate and he died in 1930, two years after the publication of Lady Chatterley, his last book. Besides Lady Chatterley, he is probably best remembered for his novel Sons and Lovers, published in 1913.

Allie Jamison Armada Books

Captain Armada

When I started reading, the most affordable books were Armada paperbacks. In 1977, they cost 35p, a far cry from the Collins hardbacks, which cost over three times as much. At the end of these books there was always this little ad, informing us that Captain Armada had a shipload of exciting books. In the 80s, Captain Armada changed to a superhero, similar to Captain America. I prefer the old one. Looking back at the prices, it was great if you came across an older copy that had been sitting on the shelf for a while because it might cost 5p less. That shilling made a big difference, as it meant a pocketful for sweets or a small bar of chocolate! 

Allie Jamison

Mary Virginia Carey wrote the first of her fifteen Three Investigators books, The Mystery of the Flaming Footprints, in 1971. She would continue with varying degrees of success until the last story, The Mystery of the Cranky Collector, in 1987, when the series was cancelled. She was identified only as M. V. Carey, to avoid discouraging the predominantly young male readers who wouldn’t want to read a book by a woman. Some of her stories (Wandering Caveman, Scar-Faced Beggar) were truly awful. Others were passable (Monster Mountain, Missing Mermaid). But there were a few gems. The Mystery of the Magic Circle is a point in question. But the best books she wrote for the series featured a strong female character called Allie Jamison. She was a bit of a spoilt rich kid who rode an Appaloosa and occasionally resided in Rocky Beach. She was hard-headed and gave Jupiter a run for his money when it came to investigating, although she relied much more on her instinct than on logic or deduction. Even so, she was usually right. Despite her cocky and conceited nature, the boys couldn’t help liking her; and neither could the readers. She was without doubt Mary Carey’s best contribution to the series and was featured in two stories: The Mystery of the Singing Serpent (1972) and The Mystery of Death Trap Mine (1976), numbers 17 and 24, respectively. As mentoned above, Ms. Carey's stories were not without their flaws. For example, she had a habit of using supernatural phenomena in her books and sometimes leaving the issue unresolved (the phantom priest in Invisible Dog and the monster in Monster Mountain). This was either meaningless or detrimental to the story. There is no supernatural phenomenon in the later story about Death Trap Mine and, fortunately, in Singing Serpent, she reverts to the use of Occam’s Razor and provides a logical and satisfactory explanation for the several mysterious events that take place in the story.

Singing Serpent was one of the first 3I books I read, maybe seventh or eighth. I was in the town with my mother and brother one Saturday afternoon in early 1977 and up near Buchanan Street Bus Station we came across a little shop called The Church of Scotland Book Shop. I saw a Three Investigators book in the window and dashed in. There were lots of the smaller Collins hardbacks, which I had never seen before. I think they cost a pound each or £1.25. That was quite a lot of money back then. I begged my mum for a book and she surprised me by agreeing to buy two! The other one was The Mystery of the Shrinking House. Once I got home, I plunged into Singing Serpent and absolutely loved it. I read it many times. Although it was a hardback book, there were no internal illustrations. It was only with the advent of the internet that I finally got to see the pictures used in the American edition.

Death Trap Mine was only published in the UK almost a year later. My friend Stephen, who also read T3I and The Hardy Boys, came to school one day bursting with the news that he had come across the newly released Number 25 in the series, The Mystery of the Dancing Devil. He told me the exciting news that, according to the list of titles in Dancing Devil, the 24th book was called The Mystery of Death Trap Mine. But it seemed that everyone in the city was after the single copy at our library, and neither of us could get our hands on it. I can remember waiting for months to borrow it. Every time I asked, it was out on loan or had been reserved. But then my luck changed. One Thursday night, I was browsing around the library on my own and suddenly, as if in a dream, there it was, lying on a reading table. On a chair beside the table bags and coats were piled, and a school notebook lay open on the table next to the book. I was perfectly aware that the little blonde girl that had wandered over to a nearby shelf of girls' books for a moment, leaving the treasure unguarded, had reserved it. It was too sore a trial. I considered myself a law-abiding citizen, but I had to have that book. I decided to take it and, if challenged, bluff my way out. I knew deep down that I was about to do something wrong. But I had only just turned eleven and pretended to myself that the book was there for the taking. I picked it up, walked over to the librarian’s desk and handed it to her. That was a long moment. I stood silently, nervously, waiting for her to say “Oh, sorry! I’m afraid you can’t take this.” But she didn’t. I could hear the girl, now back at the table, say “But, Da-ad…” The man just shook his head, his beard parted in a smile. But I pretended not to see him while that interminable moment stretched out. I must have looked as guilty as sin, but the librarian hardly glanced at me. Finally, I heard the little beep as my library ticket was scanned. Fate was on my side. The librarian stamped the book and handed it to me. I stashed it under my coat and fled! I was several hundred yards along the Alderman Road before I slowed down. On I went, turning left at Dyke Road, then down Brownside Drive and over the bridge to 10 Kelso Street. I was home. No sign of pursuit. The Mystery of Death Trap Mine was mine, all mine – for two weeks anyway. I got to school the next day and told Stephen I had got the elusive book. He pretended not to care, but I could tell he was jealous. After all, he was the one who had discovered that Number 22 was called Dead Man’s Riddle and that the scene depicted on the cover illustration of Invisible Dog didn’t actually occur in the story. Now it was my turn to gloat. But I promised I would lend the book to him. Then he looked happy.

It happens quite often in life that you can really look forward to something, build up your expectations, only to be let down. Sometimes, nothing can live up to the hype we create in our minds. I’m happy to say that this was not the case here. Death Trap Mine was everything I had hoped for and more. The return of Allie Jamison was totally unexpected and delightful. The book had everything that had often been lacking in the stories penned after the demise of Robert Arthur: a good, strong, memorable crook (three of them actually), a really exciting plot, wonderful secondary characters and a red herring. The boys and Allie visit her uncle’s Christmas tree ranch in New Mexico. A long dead mine is being worked again and mysterious characters are hanging around this usually peaceful place. It’s action all the way. A thief in the night, visits to ghost towns, explosions, helicopter rides… I read the story twice in a row. I pronounced it the best, the greatest book I had ever read. I would say it’s still my favourite 3I book. In a way, it is my Sehnsucht, my joy. By 1979, I had my own copy, a small Collins hardback. I used to write a grade on the first page of my books. This one was marked “100%”. I read it for the umpteenth time only a few months ago and it still stands up. A true favourite.

I wonder if that little girl at the library ever got to read the story. I hope she enjoyed it as much as I did. I still feel grateful to her father for not intervening. All he had to do was take a few steps across the room and remove the book from my grasp. He could have said "I'm sorry, son, that book was reserved for my daughter," or, even worse, "How dare you snatch a book from my little girl's table!" As he looked curiously at me, I sensed that he sympathised with me, perhaps remembering when he was a boy and how he had longed to read a particular book that was not easy to obtain. I'll never know. But it was nice of him to let me off the hook.

Runaway Alice (A Nickel for Alice)

When I finished Villette on Saturday, it was my intention to go straight to the book on Henry Kissinger’s years in the White House. But when I looked in my file of books to read, I noticed one that I downloaded along with Little House on the Prairie. It was called Runaway Alice (originally published in the early 1950s as A Nickel for Alice) by Frances Salomon Murphy. The picture on the front cover of a girl sitting looking miserable wasn’t exactly appealing, but I decided to give it a try. It’s a story about a 12-year-old orphan girl called Alice Wright and the difficulties she experiences in finding a foster home and, later, being adopted. Alice is first placed in the home of the Jordans, a well-to-do family with a daughter only two years her junior. Although the Jordans are nice, Alice doesn’t adapt, so she runs away. Miss Cannon, the social worker, is very patient with her and finds her another temporary home on a farm with the Potters. Mrs Potter would really prefer a boy, but agrees to take Alice until a permanent home can be found. Alice falls in love with the farm and makes friends in the surrounding area. Mr Potter also likes Alice, but Mrs. Potter is set on having a boy. The foster parents have three grown-up boys of their own who now live far away. Mother Potter grew up with a lot of brothers and only had sons, so she feels that she could never get used to a girl. Nevertheless, the couple end up becoming attached to Alice and she stays with them.

There is one scene early in the book that was particularly touching. When Alice, who has a reputation for being a runaway, hence the title, flees a foster home, she goes back to the first place she was sent to, the house of a Mrs Baker. This woman only took Alice in to make what money she could and made it clear that she never liked her very much. On Alice’s part, the feeling is mutual. But when asked why she continues to run back to the Baker family: “I don’t know,” Alice said helplessly. “I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

What I like about these Scholastic stories is reading about how fondly they are remembered sixty years on. So many people write that they read this story over and over again. It reminds me of the fond memories I have of my first books and how I could get lost in them. How it was good to get away from the mean side streets and immerse yourself in a faraway land where everything seemed to be so different and exciting.

There is not much information available on the author, Frances Salomon Murphy. She was an elementary school teacher and published two children’s books, both about orphans: A Nickel for Alice (1951) and A Ready-Made Family (1953). She also wrote a school textbook called History of Portland, Connecticut, which was published posthumously in 1969.

Angela Brazil

In January of 2012, one of the Facebook friends I’d made through reading Jane Shaw suggested reading a book by Angela Brazil. I felt a bit infra dig about it, I must admit. But I went to Project Gutenberg and read the first one I came across, A Patriotic Schoolgirl. It was written during the Great War and there was a lot of patriotism and an avalanche of anti-German sentiment. But at the same time it was a school story. I quite enjoyed it. A few weeks later, I read another one called A Fourth Form Friendship, published in 1911. It centred around a girl called Aldred who is prone to fibbing and overconfidence. I liked this story too. After that, I didn’t read an Angela Brazil book for three years. In January of this year, I read three of her books in a row: A Pair of Schoolgirls (1912), For the School Colours (1918), and A Fortunate Term (1921). The author was a very gifted writer and captures nature, climate, mood and character with great skill. Of these three books, A Fortunate Term was the best. It was also very popular when it was published, so much so that it led the author to break what might be called a golden rule for her. Angela Brazil, unlike most writers of school stories, never wrote a series of books. With the exception of A Fortunate Term, all of her works are stand-alone titles. However, Mavis and Merle Ramsay, the heroines, were so popular that readers wrote to her requesting a sequel. She complied, and in 1922 she published Monitress Merle. This was also an excellent book, every bit as good as the first.

The two books tell the story of Mavis and Merle, aged 15 and 14, respectively. Mavis is the quiet one and Merle is feisty, determined and dominant. The older girl is frequently in poor health and her condition is not aided by the climate in the northern industrial town of Whinburn. So, her mother decides that she will send her daughters down to Devonshire to live with their great-uncle and aunt, Dr. David and Nellie Tremayne. The story is set in the fictional villages of Durracombe and Chagmouth. Mrs. Ramsay impresses Mavis by promising her that flowers are still in bloom in December in the kinder southern climate. The Tremaynes live in Durracombe, but the doctor’s practice takes him to Chagmouth every Saturday, and the girls go with him in his car. Merle is very enthusiastic about learning to drive. However, as that is not yet possible, the girls have to be content with their new school, The Moorings, run by two elderly ladies.

Like most of Angela Brazil’s other books, the story is split between their time at school and their lives in the surrounding area. The girls come up against some unpleasant characters like Opal, the head girl at The Moorings who openly declares that she doesn’t like the idea of new girls bustling in from “big schools”. There is also the unpleasant nouveau riche Williams family who act as if they own the village of Chagmouth (although the girls form a sort of friendship in the end). However, there are pleasant characters like new friends Iva and Nesta. And there is an orphan called Bevis who has already left school. He is a hard-working young man who has been cast a bad lot in life, but remains optimistic. The story trundles along, with all sorts of adventures, but also some moving scenes, one in particular when a man dies, making a stunning revelation before he goes. Of course, things turn out well for Bevis in the end, Mavis’s health improves and the girls do well at school.

I waited seven months before I turned to Monitress Merle. This too was a wonderful story and we see the girls’ characters developing. At the end of the story, Bevis proposes to Mavis.

What I liked about Angela Brazil’s writing is her skill in describing scenes, especially nature and landscapes. She brings the world alive to her readers. On a less serious note, she was also famous for the unusual slang she put into the mouths of her characters. It was rumoured that Miss Brazil would sit near schoolgirls on buses and note down what they said. This is probably not true, seeing that very few, if any, of her phrases entered the vernacular. Some examples: 

Sophonisba!

Dona, you’re ostriching.

It’s a grizzly nuisance. Strafe it all!

Rouse up, you old bluebottle!

Miss Jones is a stunt, as jinky as you like

Oh, jubilate!

It’s a sneaking rag to prig their bikkies.

Scootons nous vite!

We’re having a top hole time.

What a blazing shame.

It’s a blossomy idea

More goose you!

Angela Brazil (1868-1947) wrote almost fifty books, most of them set in boarding schools. She was one of the first writers to write for the pleasure of her readers rather than to teach them a moral lesson. Her books were considered controversial in some quarters and were banned in some schools, although by today’s standards they are quite tame. The books were at their height of popularity in the 1920s, though they continued to sell quite well into the 1960s. Although most people pronounce her name like the country Brazil, the correct pronunciation of her name was actually ‘brazzle’.

Villette

Yesterday, I finished reading Charlotte Brontë's Villette. This morning, I woke up still quite moved by it. A brilliantly told tale. You only realize the genius of a writer after finishing a tale like this one. When you boil it down, the plot is about an impoverished former rich girl who, on a whim and almost penniless, ventures overseas in search of a new life. She becomes a teacher and later hooks up with former acquaintances. After a budding romance peters out, she finds herself attracted to a man that is not suited to her, but as there are no other prospects, she finds herself falling for him. Only a brilliant writer could take such a humdrum situation and give it the gravitas and pathos that turn it into a classic. Of course, there is much more to this book than just the story. Charlotte Brontë introduces many thought-provoking themes: the religious conflicts that blighted Europe for so many years, social class, unrequited love and shattered dreams. She asks questions of the world. Why do some people just breeze their way through life without a hitch while others are subjected to seemingly endless difficulties? Why do horrible people prosper? Lucy Snow, the heroine, tells the story in the first person with great skill. We follow her through more than a decade of her life as she analyzes the people who come and go. Lucy has been described to me as feisty, which she certainly is. However, what struck me most about her is that she is a realist. She accepts the world as it is, despite questioning it. She realizes that "bliss" is not her lot in life. She has an ability to accept that certain things are not for her and she can (literally) bury the past, as she does in one moving scene with a collection of letters. Storms are used throughout the story to signify a coming tragedy. But there is also some light comedy from the nosy Madame Beck and the giggly, whimsical Miss Ginevra Fanshawe. The two men that Lucy falls in love with, Graham Barrett and Professor Paul Emanuel, are very interesting and poles apart. Many people think Villette is better than Jane Eyre. It's not for me to judge that, but this book, almost 500 pages long, was well worth reading. 

Latest Purchase: The Price of Power

Over 700 pages long, this political tome is about Henry Kissinger and his influence on American foreign policy, especially during the Nixon administration. The book was published in 1983. The reporter who wrote it was there and saw it all with his own eyes. A historically important theme from a contemporary viewpoint. Should be interesting...

The House on the Cliff

When I started reading the Hardy Boys again, I was determined to get a hold of this book. The House on the Cliff is the second book in the series, but for some reason it was never published in the UK. I found out about the book in 1979 because a friend of mine had a copy of The Tower Treasure that I think his uncle had brought from the USA. Three things about that book struck me. First of all, in the UK, The Tower Treasure was Number 31 in the series, whereas it was actually the first one to be written. In Britain, The Mystery of the Aztec Warrior was the first title. Why? I have no idea. The second thing I noted was that my friend's book was Copyright 1959. The British editions all had much later copyright dates. I was even more surprised years later to discover that the books had actually first been written in 1927. The third thing I noticed was that the second title in the series was The House on the Cliff. I waited but, alas, no copy of this book ever materialized in the UK. So, in June of this year, I purchased the e-book and finally got to read it. It is not a remarkable story, but it is a good one and the first time the boys tangle with a "master" criminal. The only thing I would criticize about the book is that, like in The Tower Treasure, the criminal is nicknamed Red. The two crooks also have similar surnames: Jackley in the first story, and Snackley in the second.

The Firebird Rocket

In June, during my Hardy Boys nostalgia trip, I reread The Firebird Rocket. I got this book from John Menzies in 1979. It was written by Vincent Buranelli. In this story, Frank, Joe and Chet are on the trail of a missing scientist, and their search takes them to Australia. I think this was one of the best in the series. The plot is one of the few that I remembered clearly after such a long time.

Currently reading...

Lilian Turner

A few months ago I was introduced to Australian literature from the turn of the twentieth century. My friend Elizabeth suggested reading Seven Little Australians by Ethel Turner (1872-1958). So, I dutifully headed to Project Gutenberg. But instead of this author, I found myself reading a book by her lesser known sister, Lilian Turner (1867-1956). I can’t remember why exactly. It was a Sunday morning and maybe I just didn’t feel like having to get to know seven characters in one go. The Lilian Turner book was called An Australian Lassie (1903). It was quite interesting to read about this new setting of Willoughby, just across the water from Sydney. The main character in the story is Elizabeth Bruce, twin sister of Cyril. Her mother was disowned by her father when she married a penniless author. Betty, as she’s called, longs for wealth and makes several attempts to get her brother adopted by her grandfather, Captain Carew, who lives just next door but never speaks to his daughter or any of his grandchildren, being a proud and stubborn old man. Instead, he has adopted the son of the man whom he intended his daughter to marry. John Brown arrives in the neighbourhood and makes life hell for the Bruce children, especially Cyril. However, he comes to have a reluctant admiration for the feisty Betty and a sort of friendship is struck up between them. They both dream of getting away and having an adventurous life. Although the girl and boy are only twelve and thirteen, respectively, they decide to sneak off to Sydney to make their fortunes. Betty earns a few shillings by singing in the streets. But eventually they are returned home by the police. Captain Carew, looking at his granddaughter, feels affection for her, but is too stubborn to admit it. The story ends happily enough, although the Bruce family do not find wealth. The moral of the story is that money does not ensure happiness. Betty’s parents, despite their poverty, are always happy together, while the rich Captain Carew is portrayed as a proud and bitter old man. I read this pleasant story in one day; my first taste of Australian literature. 

I discovered that there was a sequel called Betty the Scribe (1906). In this story, Betty is nineteen. She has just lost her mother and been encumbered with her numerous little siblings. Her big sister, Dot, is living the high life with a wealthy friend. Dot is the one on whom her parents built all their hopes, being educated privately and the only one of the family that enjoys any sort of luxury. Betty is an aspiring writer, having taken after her father. But she can’t find the time or the peace to write because of her many household duties. The first half of the book is one long tale of woe, filled with death and frustration. Cyril’s role in the plot is greatly reduced and the focus shifts to Dot. Little sister Nancy idealizes her and has a very strained relationship with Betty. Nancy writes to Dot, begging her to come home. Dot is all set for a trip to New Zealand, but struggles with the guilt of leaving all the donkey work to Betty. After her trip to New Zealand, she decides that her duty is at home. With Dot running the house, and with quite a knack for it, Betty is now free to pursue her writing career in the city. Her career meets with mixed success. John Brown returns from college and announces to Captain Carew that he cannot be his heir and that his wealth should go to the Bruce family. The old man offers Betty a chance to be his heiress, but she refuses. However, soon afterwards, he dies suddenly and leaves everything to her anyway. John Brown reappears and hints that he wants to marry Betty, but the book ends with Betty’s refusal, although the reader cannot be sure that she will not recant.

This second book was not as good as the first one. The younger siblings who crave Betty’s attention are cute but annoying, and there is too much misery in the early chapters for the book to be a comfortable read. At the end, things get better, with Betty selling her first book for fifty pounds. Here there is a stark contrast. Although so many things go wrong for Betty, her career as a writer is somewhat idealized, as if the author were thinking “I wish this had happened to me”. The idea that a nineteen-year-old girl could turn out a novel in practically no time and get it accepted by the first publisher she sends it to is a bit hard to swallow. She also gets a job at the first newspaper she applies to, although she gets fired for not doing a very good job. Again, the recurring theme of happiness with a simple life at home runs through the story, especially after Dot’s homecoming. At least the author allows the family to be happy about Betty’s inheritance, although we don’t actually see her with the money, as she has to wait until she is twenty-one to get it.

As far as I can tell, this was the last appearance of Betty Bruce in Lilian Turner’s writing. Her next two books, published in 1908 and 1909, respectively, were Paradise and the Perrys and The Perry Girls. I may return to Lilian Turner one day. But now I’ve moved on to a heavier tome: Villette by Charlotte Brontë.

Piltdown Man Hoax: Case Closed

This was one of the first books I read this year. Miles Russell makes a very convincing case for naming Charles Dawson as the perpetrator of the Piltdown Man hoax of 1912. It's an excellent book, although it tends to drag a little in the middle as he really piles on the evidence. But for anyone interested in hoaxes, it is highly recommended.

The Little House on the Prairie

Yesterday I finished reading The Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder. It was only a few months ago that I found out that this is a true story and that Laura Ingalls was a real person. When I was a boy back in the mid-1970s, we used to watch the TV series on Sunday afternoons on STV after Cartoon Cavalcade. The story is actually the second in a series of books in which Laura Ingalls looks back at her childhood as she and her family move west. Although exact dates and ages are not mentioned in the books, websites on the Ingalls family state that this story is set in 1873-1874, when Laura was aged between five and seven. At the beginning of the story, her father decides to leave his kinfolk and venture from Pepin, Wisconsin to set up a farm 12 miles from the town of Independence, Kansas. The book is told from the little girl’s viewpoint, and does not offer much of an explanation for this apparently ludicrous upheaval. However, a little research showed that Mr. Ingalls was induced by the possibility of obtaining 160 acres of free land that was offered (through the Homestead Act of 1862) to anyone willing to settle the region. The problem is that the land in question is claimed by the Osage Indians.

It is a nice little story of a close family venturing into unknown territory in pursuit of the American dream. The children and Mrs. Ingalls are ruled by the kind but firm hand of Charles, or Pa as they call him. However, Mr. Ingalls takes some risks that can only be described as madness and the whole family nearly drowns before they reach the prairie land because of his rash decision to cross a creek in the wrong place. But they eventually reach their destination in one piece and Pa builds a house with nothing more than felled trees and a few borrowed nails. Adventures follow: trouble with the Indians, starting a farm, building a barn, trading in the nearby town, meeting the neighbours and fighting a prairie fire. There are also general descriptions of daily life and the surrounding lands. At the end of the story, the family are informed that troops have been sent to remove the settlers because the government have decided to side with the Indians. Mr. Ingalls reacts angrily and announces the family’s immediate departure. The end.

Some contemporary readers have been alarmed by the openly racist language used in the book. The normally wise, polite and docile Ma has harsh words for the Indians, and the sentence “The only good Indian is a dead Indian,” occurs several times in the story. But as this is the way people spoke back in the day, I think it has to be kept in the text to preserve its authenticity. We only see the situation through the eyes of the Ingalls family and their neighbours. We don’t see the Indians in their camp. I’m sure there were Indians who said that the only good white man was a dead one. Another opinion that troubles modern readers is the argument, again forwarded by Mrs. Ingalls, that surely the land ought to belong to the people willing to farm it and that the Indians only roam around like wild animals. The Indians are also portrayed as thieves, entering the Ingalls home and stealing food and tobacco.

I enjoyed this story, and intend to read more of the books in the series. I wonder if the characters will turn out to be as they were portrayed in the television series. I noticed that in the last book, These Happy Golden Years, one of the chapters is called Nellie Olsen. I remember her as the blond, snobby nemesis of the Ingalls girls in the TV show. I wonder what she was like in real life.

While the Clock Ticked

The Flickering Torch Mystery

In June, I started rereading The Hardy Boys. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, I read these books over and over. After thirty years, I felt a bit nostalgic for them and started buying them from Kobo and Amazon. I was surprised that some stories weren't what I had remembered. A number of the stories were revised and modernized in the late fifties and throughout the sixties. Others were totally rewritten, retaining only the title but with a new story. The Flickering Torch Mystery was one such book. The British Armada edition (above) that I had, for some reason, was the original story, although I bought it around 1979. When I bought the book from Kobo (below) I got the rewritten one, which wasn't all that good. I managed to find a copy of the Armada edition and read it as soon as I finished the rewritten version. Now, I am not being a Hardy Boys purist. A few days later, I read both versions of While the Clock Ticked and preferred the new one.

Latest Read: A Traveller in Time

A lot of negative things are said about online friendships. I often hear people showing disdain for Twitter and Facebook, claiming that they prefer “real people” rather than a never changing photograph that has to say everything in 140 characters. They laugh when they hear someone say that it’s time to “clear out their friends on Facebook”. I suppose there is some truth in this viewpoint. Every Facebook user has friends that they hardly know. I certainly do. A student who does one class adds me as a friend. Someone who agrees with something I wrote on Goodreads sends me a friend request. Yes, these are not friends in the traditional sense of the word or maybe not even friends at all. But that does not mean that everyone you meet online is just a face on the screen. To me, online friendships have been a lifeline. I love books, and down here in Brazil where hardly anyone speaks English and no one reads the kind of books that I do, the only way to talk about reading is online. For years, I had no one to talk to about the books I enjoy. I’ve worked at English schools, but the other teachers seldom read fiction in English, preferring to concentrate on books about ELT. So, when the internet came on the scene, I welcomed it gratefully. During the Lord of the Rings craze in 2001, I was online chatting every day. But it was only after I started the Jane Shaw blog that I started to meet people who enjoy a wider range of stories. There have been five people in particular: Pam from South Africa, Jan from Scotland, Ruth from Scotland, Pamela from the USA and Elizabeth from Australia. Recently, I’ve been having a nice correspondence with Elizabeth, who has a PhD in literature and has read tons of books. She recommended some of the best reads I’ve enjoyed this year, including An Australian Lassie by Lilian Turner and The Girl from the Big Horn Country by Mary Ellen Chase. Another book that she told me about was the one I finished reading yesterday, A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley, published in 1939. I’d never heard of this book, but I soon discovered that it has been enjoyed by generations of readers. It is classified as a young adult novel, although the level of vocabulary is quite advanced.

It is an interesting story about a girl called Penelope who believes that she lives in two time periods simultaneously. She was born in the late Victorian age, but finds herself being transported back to the time of Mary Queen of Scots in the 1580s and becoming embroiled in a plot to rescue the queen and smuggle her over to France. Of course, the outcome of this doomed plot is known from the start, so the focus of the story is on the characters. It is a very well written book and the author shows great skill when wielding her pen. It is interesting because when you finish reading it you are left wondering. Was she actually slipping through time or was she dreaming or imagining it all? In my opinion, it was either a vivid imagination or an illusion. But who knows? A very intense book. Not a page-turner, and few cliff-hangers. This is a book to savour and enjoy. I certainly did. An interesting comment that I read on Goodreads about this book was by a woman called Hannah. She said: "Absolutely enchanting YA novel. I only wish I had read it as a young girl so that I could have fond memories of it!"

Recent Read: The Girl from the Big Horn Country

This book by Mary Ellen Chase is the first of the two novels.Virginia is in love with her Wyoming home but will have to leave it to go to school in the East. It's a very well told story, originally published in 1916. It has many breathtaking descriptions of Wyoming and very interesting characters. It was recommended by my friend from Australia, Elizabeth Lindsay, who has recommended a lot of good books to me this year. The second book in the series is Virginia of Elk Creek Valley, published in 1917. It's definitely on my "to-read" list.  

Thorpe Green

I've never been one for poetry, but this one by Branwell Brontë is very nice. I think it's the simplicity of it that appeals to me. It reminds me of the sort of poem that would pop up in our readers at primary school and the teacher would either ignore them or go over them very briefly. I first came across Thorpe Green in 2001 and never forgot it. It was written by Branwell Brontë on 30th March, 1843. 

I sit, this evening, far away,
From all I used to know,
And nought reminds my soul to-day
Of happy long ago.

Unwelcome cares, unthought-of fears,
Around my room arise;
I seek for suns of former years
But clouds o'ercast my skies.

Yes-Memory, wherefore does thy voice
Bring old times back to view,
As thou wouldst bid me not rejoice
In thoughts and prospects new?

I'll thank thee, Memory, in the hour
When troubled thoughts are mine-
For thou, like suns in April's shower,
On shadowy scenes wilt shine.

I'll thank thee when approaching death
Would quench life's feeble ember,
For thou wouldst even renew my breath
With thy sweet word 'Remember'!

Reading in 2015

This year I made a resolution to read a wider range of authors rather than rereading my favourite books. The result so far is quite impressive. There are some rereads on the list like The Mystery of Death Trap Mine and Mansfield Park, and a couple of months ago I went on a nostalgia trip revisiting some Hardy Boys stories. But on the whole, I've been reading a much broader scope of books and articles. This is what I have read so far in 2015. Some of the books were quite disappointing, especially The Burden by Mary Westmacott (a.k.a. Agatha Christie). I also read three of Christie's Tommy and Tuppence books. The first one was really good, the second one was passable and the third one was dreadful. No surprise there as it was written towards the end of her life, around the same time that she wrote Passenger to Frankfurt, which was awful. However, there were also some excellent stories. Two books that I bought in Scotland deserve a special mention. The first was The Island of Lost Horses by Stacy Gregg and The Accidental Time Traveller by Janis MacKay. I read the latter on my way back to Brazil and absolutely loved it. I found out that there was a follow-up, The Reluctant Time Traveller, so I added that to my Kobo collection. At the beginning of the year, I became really interested once again in the Piltdown Man hoax. With e-books easily available, I added several to my collection, including the original Piltdown Forgery by Joseph Weiner and the later Piltdown Man Hoax: Case Closed by Miles Russell. Other books were found simply by browsing on Project Gutenberg. One was The Automobile Girls at Newport by Laura Dent Crane, published in 1910. This is a story about a group of girls who have the freedom to travel around on their own (accompanied by only one chaperone - pretty daring stuff!) because one of them has her own car, a pile of money and a free-thinking father. Anyway, here is a complete list of what I have read so far in 2015.

Missing One’s Coach (Anonymous)

Summa Theologica Part 1 (Saint Thomas Aquinas)
The Mystery of Wreckers Rock (William Arden)
The Mystery of the Smashing Glass (William Arden)
Azazel (Isaac Asimov)
The Alternate Asimovs (Isaac Asimov)
Lady Susan (Jane Austen)
Mansfield Park (Jane Austen)
The Piltdown Inquest (Charles Blinderman)
The Martian Chronicles (Ray Bradbury)
The Mystery of the Two Toed Pigeon (Marc Brandel)
A Fortunate Term (Angela Brazil)
Monitress Merle (Angela Brazil)
Loyal to the School (Angela Brazil)
For the School Colours (Angela Brazil)
Thorp Green (Branwell Brontë)
The Mystery of Death Trap Mine (M. V. Carey)
Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President (Jimmy Carter)
The Girl from the Big Horn Country (Mary Ellen Chase)
The Secret Adversary (Agatha Christie)
N or M (Agatha Christie)
By the Pricking of my Thumbs (Agatha Christie)
The Automobile Girls at Newport (Laura Dent Crane)
The Visitor (Roald Dahl)
Parson’s Pleasure (Roald Dahl)
The Idea of Prehistory (Glyn Daniel)
A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens)
The Firebird Rocket (Franklin W. Dixon)
The Flickering Torch Mystery (Original) (Franklin W. Dixon)
The Flickering Torch Mystery (Rewritten Version) (Franklin W. Dixon)
The Firebird Rocket (Franklin W. Dixon)
The House on the Cliff (Franklin W. Dixon)
The Tower Treasure (Franklin W. Dixon)
The Secret Agent on Flight 101 (Franklin W. Dixon)
While the Clock Ticked (Franklin W. Dixon)
Man in the Empty Suit (Sean Ferrell)
The Governess (Sarah Fielding)
Jill’s Gymkhana (Ruby Ferguson)
Remembering America: A Voice from the Sixties (Richard N. Goodwin)
The Island of Lost Horses (Stacy Gregg)
Timecast (James Hanback Jr.)
Wendy and Jinx and the Missing Scientist (Valerie Hastings)
The Whispering Statue (Carolyn Keene)
Alfred Hitchcock: Quotes and Facts (Blago Kirov)
The Planned Planting of Piltdown (Wilton Marion Krogman)
The Fib and Other Stories (George Layton)
Surprised by Joy (C. S. Lewis)
The Accidental Time Traveller (Janis MacKay)
The Reluctant Time Traveller (Janis MacKay)
Mission to Mars (Patrick Moore)
The Little Frenchman with his Water Lots (George Pope Morris)
Newton’s Gift (Paul Nahin)
Flowering Judas (Katherine Anne Porter)
The Grave (Katherine Anne Porter)
The Piltdown Man Hoax: Case Closed (Miles Russell)
Susan in Trouble (Jane Shaw)
The Wilsons Won’t Mind (Jane Shaw)
House of the Glimmering Light (Jane Shaw)
The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock (Donald Spoto)

The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class (Guy Standing)
An Australian Lassie (Lilian Turner)
A Traveller in Time (Alison Uttley)
The Piltdown Forgery (Joseph Weiner)
The Burden (Mary Westmacott)
The Earliest Englishman (Sir Arthur Smith Woodward)
Ginnie Joins In (Catherine Woolley)
Ginnie and the New Girl (Catherine Woolley)

Catcher in the Rye

This is the shortest book review I've ever written. Here it is in full as posted on Goodreads back in April of this year:

"Probably the worst book I've ever read. I gave it one star because you can't give zero."

I guess that just about says it all. Man, how I hated, hated, hated this book. I bought it because for years I'd heard people raving about how it was a landmark of American literature and a cultural icon. No, it isn't. It's just a really, really bad story in every possible way.

Hyperquake

Every year, an elite few manage to change their lives forever. They break away from the rat race and join that exclusive club to which only those endowed with a special skill or gift are admitted. Songwriters, actors, playwrights and journalists enjoy the respect and the accolades that come with fame, and get to hobnob with other celebrities as they travel the world in style. As an added bonus, they are able to live a life of luxury from the royalties they are about to start perennially receiving on their newly completed album, book, play or movie. Many people aspire to this dream, and I have joined their ranks, a fact that only now I am ready to reveal. My life blood has gone into the writing of my novel. Many a weekend and bank holiday have been sacrificed (along with much of the rest of my free time) to get that special chapter done. But now it has all been worth it, because my magnum opus is complete at last and ready to hit the printing presses. Well, it is almost inevitable that an editor will want to tweak the text here and there as I’m a newcomer. That’s just part of the business. They'll get away with tinkering with my text the first time, but when my second book is up for publication, I won't let them change a comma. Not one niggly grammar point will be altered without my prior consent. But I digress. That is not what’s foremost on my mind at the moment. I am relishing something a little closer to home. The day is not far off when I will be able to call my boss and tell him that I won’t be in for work on Monday morning. Because my book is going to sell a million copies. I, Mark Gainsby Hammond III (my full name with that little III after it will really give the book a very sophisticated air, a clever last-minute notion of mine) am going to be a best seller. All I have to do is find a publisher and set the ball rolling.

So I send my book to five publishers. I could send it to more, but what's the point? Of these five who have it, three will kill to get their hands on it and make a bid, so why give myself the extra work of sending it off to others? Let these ones fight it out.

But then the replies come and, lo and behold, they are rejections. Well not quite, depending on how you interpret them:

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for sending us your manuscript(s). We regret to inform you that we are not accepting unsolicited works at the moment, but wish you luck with your project(s). We would, however, recommend that you find a literary agent before re-submitting at a later date, as priority is given to manuscripts forwarded to us through literary agencies.

Well, that’s not an outright rejection really, is it? They might take it later, as they have said they are not accepting “at the moment”; but there is also hope if I can find that literary agent. That shouldn’t prove too hard. Publicity agents, real estate agents and travel agents are always advertising, so finding this literary agent person shouldn’t take too long. They also warned me that it is best to work with an agent who specializes in my field. That should be easy enough. Like many writers, I pen science fiction stories, so I just have to steer clear of those who specialize in romance.

Now there's a turn up for the books. After consulting the Yellow Pages and the telephone directory, I am surprised to find that there are no literary agents listed. Strange, even though I live in a big city. Wait, I’ve got it! They’re probably all located down in London. But a search in the Yellow Pages of the capital also turns up nothing. These literary agents do seem to be a secretive bunch. Finally, a letter of rejection arrives which is a slight variation of the other four and informs me that a list of literary agents is available in the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook. This publication turns out to be pretty expensive, but by now I’m beginning to think that getting published won’t be so easy after all. A little further investment in this book will hardly kill me. Having sacrificed so many holidays and weekends and forked out for the photocopying and postage incurred so far, a couple of quid more won’t make much difference. Even so, I am starting to see a little drain on my resources here, despite the idea that I would make money from my writing rather than spend it to get published.

But it will all pay off in the end. For now I have the list of agents, and one of them will be my saviour. One of them will sit down with me between lunches and dinners at nice restaurants and give me pointers, really help me polish my manuscript (after all those rejections, I’d better tidy it up a bit more) and work his or her backside off to get me published. After all, they’re on commission here. The more I sell, the more they pocket.

However, I won’t write this time. I’ll phone. Writing can mean a wait of days for a reply and I’ve had this finished manuscript on my hands for months, almost a year now that I come to think of it. And it’s been over five years since I first sat down to write it. That’s about 16% of my life, so it’s time to get a move on and stop pussyfooting around. But getting in touch with the agent is easier said than done. Is there no one to man the phones at these places? After numerous tries, I finally get through to a secretary at one of the agencies, a nice girl called Sandra. She says that Mr Smith will call me back. No, I’m sorry, he has gone to a writers’ convention and won’t be in for several days. No, I can’t say exactly when he’ll be back, but he will call at his earliest convenience… if possible. Well, he’s at a conference, moving with the bigwigs of the literary world, helping one of his beloved writers pick up a Pulitzer Prize or two. Is it just a coincidence that every agency I manage to contact has the same story to tell?

So, I’ll write after all. But my e-mails are either unanswered or result in brief replies that have that uncanny ring of the automatically generated message about them.

Dear Writer,

Thank you for your contact message and/or manuscript. Unfortunately, our agency does not handle this genre of work.

Dear Writer,

Thank you for your message. It is with regret that we inform you that we do not deal with science fiction manuscripts. Our agency specializes in other genres of literature.

Dear Writer,

Thank you for your message. I regret to inform you that at the moment we are not accepting children’s manuscripts. We suggest that you seek out an agency that specializes in this genre.

Genre! It’s all about genre. But nobody seems interested in my genres. I wrote that children’s story for my nephew not long after he was born, and he liked it. Snuggles the Kitten Goes to School. How could they turn that down? It's such a cute little story. But that was only a side line. How could no one be interested in my galactic empire story, with space ships crossing the cosmos at faster-than-light speeds, not to mention my pretty original definition of hyperspace? They don’t even want to look at it. I sent them the thirty pages with double spacing and 12-point Arial font that they requested, sure that it would whet their appetite and have them begging for more.

Phoning and writing, sending manuscripts. Another three months have gone by and no joy. I’ve spoken to Sandra and her equivalents at other agencies a hundred times. Although they are superficially friendly and speak in sympathetic tones, I get the feeling that they’ve been brushing people off with the same excuses for years. It is clear that none of the agencies I have contacted will deal with my genres. And in all this time, I've never managed to speak to the elusive agent in person. I think it would be easier to place a personal phone call to the Queen or the President of the United States than to get through to one of these people. I realize now that instead of writing books I should have been out there investing in telephone companies. Their shareholders must propose a special toast to literary agents at their meetings. That last bill was a whopper.

I wonder. Dozens of books for kids are published every year, but nobody wants to act as the agent for children’s writers. I remember reading in Tolkien’s biography that his manuscript for The Hobbit was sitting in a drawer unfinished, and some woman from the publisher drove all the way to Oxford to beg him to get it into a presentable state. He hadn’t published anything before and had no track record. Yet they implored him to get it done. Famous singers and politicians doodle stories for kiddies during long plane flights and get them published. My books are more than scribbles. They are all carefully revised, checked and ready for publication, but nobody wants them.

But forget about Snuggles the kitten. What I really don’t get is how anyone could resist my sci-fi story. OK, I admit that it might have started out sounding like an Asimov imitation, but I worked all that out of the text in the first rewrite and made it really original - all my own work, so to speak. I don’t think you can see Asimov in it at all now. But even if you could, that wouldn’t be all bad, would it? C. S. Lewis said that he was “influenced” by H. G. Wells, admitted it pretty openly in the foreword to Out of the Silent Planet. Why is it that Lewis is “influenced” and I’m “copying”? And isn't Perelandra just a reworking of the Book of Genesis? No one ever accused him of ripping off the Bible, although even my untrained eye could see it for what it was.

Although someone spotting the Asimov connection was once my main fear, that’s no longer the case. My chief concern now is trying to get someone to read my manuscript at all. If they would just take a look at it, they would see how good it is. However, now that I come to think of it, who are the people who work in publishing? I’ve never met or known a literary agent, or anyone who works for a literary agent. Not even a cleaner or tea lady. How come you never strike up a casual conversation with a literary agent at a bus stop or in a pub? Why do these people never seem to have families? Have you ever met someone who was related to a literary agent, a distant cousin even? It makes you wonder. I do, however, remember that article I read in a magazine at the doctor's the other day. As many as one hundred thousand people are estimated to be in the process of writing a book at any one time in the United Kingdom, and the vast majority will never see the light of day. One budding novelist said that the attraction to writing may lie in the fact that whereas a movie or play may involve prohibitive costs, a book requires nothing more than dedication and a good imagination. The growth in the use of desktop computers, which dispenses with the costly typing of the ten-fingered, has only helped increase that number. Desktop computers? Well, it was a pretty old magazine, the type that lies around the doctor's waiting room for years, but well, yes, that was basically what had crossed my mind when I had my first inspiration to write. I could literally turn nothing into something hugely profitable. Anyway, I'm letting my mind wander again, just like any true artist, I suppose. We love our own thoughts more than anything. But, to get back on track, it seems that, unlike real estate agents and travel agents, literary agents have no need to advertise at all. With all these hopeful writers out there, they have more on their plate than they can handle. In fact, they need to put that protective wall around themselves to ward off the likes of me. That's where the Sandras come in, patiently reeling off the same old excuses day in, day out. I wonder how Sandra got that job. I've never seen a literary agent advertise for a secretary. How do they keep desperate writers from posing as secretaries or other functionaries just to try and slip them a manuscript? Do these secretaries accept bribes? Here's a hundred notes, show this to your boss and tell him you’re convinced it's the next big thing. How do you break into that impenetrable world of publishing? Is the only way to get landed on the jury at a high-profile trial and get your big break that way? The jurors at those sensational murder trials always have book deals waiting for them at the end of it all. But surely that can't be the only road to fame. There are actually new writers who do get published, aren't there? I often see reviews with the words "first-time, promising young author" in them. Who are these people?

Now I’m thinking of that writer I saw on TV the other day. What was it he said? Right: “I finished my first novel and took it to my agent, who got in touch with HarperCollins….” They make it sound so easy. (And did he say that he had an agent even before he had finished his book?) Then there was the other guy who sent in his novel to a publisher and got a cheque for a quarter of a million the next week and then sold the movie rights to boot. And the woman who said that she was so sick of the indifference that she changed her publisher twice. Wow! If I could only get published once! How do they do it? How do they get into print? We hear stories about people who spend years in the publishing wilderness but finally get picked up. But then there are the others who just seem to glide into the business with minimum effort. What about Kazuo Ishiguro, who wrote The Remains of the Day? The blurb for one of his stories claimed that he was "an expert on Britain between the wars". Astonishing. He isn't even English and he was only born in 1954, so how can his company be so crass as to make such a claim? But he was published by the time he was thirty, and with a name that hardly rolls of the tongue. People go into the shop and say they want the book by that guy called, ah, er, Kizzy Something-or-other. Yet it's a best seller every time!

Well, that Yearbook was a waste of time, wasn’t it? I contacted every agent in the land and not even a whiff of interest. And my book is so damn good! They all seem to want to hook already established writers. That’s what Sandra hinted at in one of our last conversations when she was desperately trying to get me to stop calling. But that’s like the old first job syndrome. How can you get experience without a job, and how can you get a job without experience? Anyway, so much for Sandra & Co. You know, if she had just said in the first place that they weren’t interested, then that would have been fine. I would have taken a gentle hint, right? Well, probably not. I would have said, no, you’ve got to see this book, it’s great. Just read it. I would have sent it in and pestered them no matter what they had said. At least now I’ve made sure. I sent it to them in the way they asked with their three-centimetre margins and double-spacing and twelve-point type. Cost me a bloody fortune too. I also spent days working on what they call a query. They say that the query is everything when it comes to approaching an agent. It has to be well written and convincing, something that will make the agent want to sign you. Isn't that a proposal? It must be the jargon of the business, because to me a query is a little question or doubt to be cleared up. They want to know all about you and how you started writing and God knows what else. Hey, it's my book I want you to look at, not me. Read my book, please, and forget about me! Anyway, just to make them happy, I prepared what I imagined to be a great "query", even though they never actually said what should be in it beyond a few personal details and an outline of my story. Be creative? Does that mean witty or serious or something else entirely? I have no idea really. Be dynamic? Well, I tried... And as usual all I got in reply were the same old standard rejections. Another dead end, but now at least I know for sure that I’ve been barking up the wrong tree. There must be another way.

I’ve decided to try searching beyond our borders through the internet. I type in "publishing" and "literary agents". There are some help sites for writers.

Nobody needs another Tom Clancy or Danielle Steel. Try to develop your own unique style and present it in a positive light.

OK, nothing wrong with that. I'm well past emulating Asimov. But present it to whom? Nobody wants to read my stuff.

But wait, what is this?

MANUSCRIPTS WANTED

All subjects considered.

Vantage Press, New York

Now, I may be desperate, but I’m not stupid. This is a vanity publisher. A serious publisher is selective, and certainly doesn’t consider just anything. Although I’m a bit new to this game, I’m not that daft. Let’s try to find literary agents online. Remember that woman on the BBC a few weeks ago? She said that her business ideas had failed to find a backer in Britain, so she took the project to America. “The States are wonderful. You have an idea there and people just throw money at you.” Now that sounds more like it. You see, Britain is a pretty conservative country after all and the only people who get published probably have connections in the business. Otherwise, publishers and agents just throw your manuscript in with the other rejects on the slush pile. Yes, I’ve learned that term by now. Slush pile. That’s what they call unsolicited manuscripts. Never mind that people slave over those things for years, we’ll call them the slush pile. It’s all right for them, sitting so high and mighty, picking and choosing what to publish, like Steve Rubell outside Studio 54. So, I’ll abandon the idea of a traditional British publisher and find someone abroad who is willing to take a gamble on a newcomer with a fresh idea.

This is more like it, the real deal. What we have here as the result of an online search are literary agents who are on the lookout for new writers. There are even those little ads at the top of the page that people pay to have come up as the first results of a search. I know that every time someone clicks on those, the literary agents will have to pay a fee to the search engine. I can only conclude that these people must be really serious about getting new writers. I note that all of these sponsored links are American companies. That’s what I said before. The American Dream. And, like an oasis in the desert, I find what I am looking for:

A small family-based company that can help you bridge the gap between a manuscript and a book,

or

a tightly knit sympathetic group of people who have been there, know what you are feeling and can steer you through the bewildering maze of the publishing community.

This is right up my street! And it only gets better. Look! They say you can submit your manuscript by e-mail. Partial or whole manuscripts may be submitted by e-mail in Word for Windows format, PDF file or just about any electronic format known to man. They’re obviously out to save time and costs. Remember those British agents, all so fussy with their double-spacing and font sizes on A4 paper. It cost me a bomb to keep sending out all that stuff, but now here’s someone who’s going to cut through all that red tape and enter the twenty-first century.

Please allow up to a week for consideration. We promise that we WILL get back to you.

Sounds fair enough. After all I’ve been through an extra couple of days won’t make much difference. And I’ve got my day job to keep me busy anyway.

Three days later and there’s a reply in my e-mail. Hmmm, that was quick. Too quick, really. They probably just took one look at the first page and threw it out. Well, here goes nothing!

Dear Mark,

Wait a minute! What is this? They’ve used my name. I’m no longer a Sir/Madam or even a Writer, I’m me!

Thank you for submitting your manuscript entitled 'Hyperquake'.

Once again, kudos! They’ve actually named my manuscript… and correctly too. So, someone has at least read the title!

We were all very impressed by your work and would be happy to have you on board as a member of our ever growing list of successful authors. We see a very bright future in our working relationship.

I can’t believe it. Pinch me! I must be dreaming. They want my work, mine. It’s been a long time coming, although I’m not alone in that respect. Didn’t J. K. Rowling say that she got turned down 23 times before she got Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone published? Didn’t Tolkien take years to get The Lord of the Rings into print? Wasn’t Mozart considered a failure when he died penniless? Let's not even mention Van Gogh! All you need is someone to recognize your potential, your innate talent which is unrecognized by conventional minds that just want more of the same. And did you see that they said "author" rather than "writer"? That is of paramount importance. An author is someone who has published a book. A writer is just another word for someone who is chronically unemployed or who will never see a story in print. And they called me an author. Author! A sop to my vanity, or a statement of fact? I much prefer the latter. Remember that Agatha Christie tale Death on the Nile? Well, there was a jewel thief in that book called Tim Allerton. On the surface, he passed himself off as a writer, even had a fake manuscript in his room to make people think he was writing something. A fraud in other words, a pretender; as I was until a moment ago. But now I'm an author! I love to say that: I am an author!

Please click here to download and print the enclosed contract.

A contract! The time has come to put pen to paper. You always hear of celebrities signing record-breaking contracts. Now it’s my turn!

Our fee is a modest 15% of all contracts and/or royalties, including commissioning for motion pictures.

We’ve hit the big league, baby! Movies! OK, Hitchcock is no longer around to direct it, but maybe Spielberg, Scorcese or just some new director looking for his big break. And if I make a million, that’s a hundred and fifty grand to the agent. Well worth it, I say. So, where will I build that summer home? I saw that beautiful place up in the Orkney Islands last year; at a bargain price too (not that I’ll have to worry much about cost anymore). The perfect place to retire to and write my second novel: peace and quiet, a little lighthouse on the neighbouring island; the right sort of place for spiritual inspiration. I can see it all now...

We trust that you will find the terms of the contract fair and acceptable and we look forward to a long and profitable working relationship with you.

Professional, but on a first name basis. Just what I wanted. I needed someone who wasn’t too stuck up or insistent on formalities. On the other hand, I also want someone who’ll show that they're taking this seriously. Anyway, let’s get that contract printed, signed and posted ASAP! Then I’ll call my boss. Better still, I’ll go and do the walk in. That’s what George from Seinfeld called it, wasn't it? The walk in, the great feeling of telling your boss what a pig he is and how you’re not going to miss him! Of course, he also mentioned the walk out, which was not so good because that’s when you realize how much dough you’re losing. Well, that’s not going to be the case with me, cos I’m in the money, baby!

Click and wait. I wonder who’ll play my leading character in the movie. That cute blonde woman I saw on ITV last night. She was pretty much what I had in mind while I was writing. Quite a striking resemblance, actually. Ah, the contract. Hold on! That can’t be right. They’ll only pay me $3,200 up front? Wait! They want me to pay $3,200 to them? That can’t be right. I’ll send them an e-mail at once. There must be some misunderstanding here.

Dear Mark,

Thank you for your e-mail. Yes, it is quite customary nowadays for an agent to request some financing from new writers. Our agency incurs a great deal of expenses in our tireless efforts to find the best possible deal for our writers in the run up to signing with a publisher…

Well, that’s a bit of a blow, isn’t it? And I can’t help getting the sneaking suspicion that the first-name terms and friendly overall tone of our correspondence were all building up to this. Plus the contract mentions only my obligation to pay, with no guarantee of success on their part. On the other hand, let’s not get too cynical. It would be unrealistic to expect them to make an airtight promise of success, even considering their hyperbolic advertising. Nevertheless, they did mention, did they not, that I would become part of their ever growing list of successful authors. I wonder who these successful authors are. Of course, I write more than I read, and America’s a big place, so I don’t know much about what goes on over there. Someone who sells, say, twenty thousand books in the US is probably considered only moderately successful. But if I could sell that, with royalties of three dollars a book, that would be 60K a year. Not much to a big shot writer with his beach-front home in Malibu or Honolulu, but to a guy like me it would be great compared to what I make in my humdrum job over here. I’ll send an e-mail asking for a few names. After all, I can't afford to look down the nose at this thing. Compared with the millions they are sure I can make, this up-front fee of $3,200 doesn't seem too much to ask, does it? Well, it won't seem too much, it won't seem like anything at all once I've got those millions in my hands, but for the time being it is a pretty hefty sum to come up with.

I’ve been really busy at work the past two, no wait, three weeks and it’s only now that I realize that they’re dragging their feet in answering my question. I’m not asking for an exhaustive list of writers, just a few names. Then I can go to online stores around the world and see their books. Wait, what a coincidence! Just as I log on, there’s an e-mail from them.

Dear Mark,

We are still waiting for your signed contract so that we can begin our efforts to get your excellent manuscript into print. Please forward the signed contract as soon as possible. Our banking details are given below.

But what about the ever growing list of successful authors? Nothing on that. Although they’ve sent me their banking details several times now, there seems to be considerable difficulty in writing out a few of those names. Nor is there any mention of my proposal to deduct the $3,200 fee from the future royalties that they are so sure will come instead of paying now.

Dear Mark,

Our staff works full time to get the best deal for you and all of our authors. Contracts have been signed with several New York publishers such as Vantage Press and others as far afield as Canada and Europe. Other agreements have been made with Xlibris and iUniverse.

Passive voice. Contracts have been signed. I’m not a big fan of this use of the passive voice. It seems to make everything look so vague. Still no names of authors, only publishers. And I don’t remember ever reading a book published by any of the companies mentioned, although I’ve seen that name Vantage several times in online ads. This is all beginning to stink. Xlibris and iUniverse are print-on-demand companies. They’ll print anything you like, for a fee, with no need for an agent.

Well, it’s a long weekend and I’m going to see what I can find out about this. The world is at my fingertips.

And now what I secretly knew all along has been confirmed. There are vanity agents, forwarding manuscripts to vanity publishers, most of them in cahoots. And it turns out that my agent has already been indicted under other pseudonyms for fraud. Hey, I have to stop saying “my agent”, though it did sound good, didn't it? My agent. My publisher. Too good to be true. This guy has raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars from desperate writers. At least I found out in time. Look at all these people on Writer Beware. One woman sold her car to pay the signing on fee with this crummy so-called agent. And even when the money was sent to the vanity publishers, more often than not the writers didn't even get the thousand copies of their books that they had been forced to pay for. All scams. Searching the internet, the same names come up all the time, all conning people out of their hard earned cash, people willing to do anything in the hope that they can see their books in print: The Deering Literary Agency, Publish America, The Children's Literary Agency, The Woodside Agency, Lisa Hackney (a.k.a. Melanie Mills, a.k.a. Elisabeth Von Hullessem, a.k.a. Roswitha Von Meerscheidt-Hullessem), Desert Rose, Janet Kay, all scam artists charging reading fees, set-up fees, representation fees, consultancy fees, up-front management fees, editing fees, this fee, that fee. You can even hire a writer to prepare your all-important query so that you can attract an agent, who might attract a publisher, who might market your book so that someone out there might read it someday. Some of these scammers have been sent to prison, but return under another name. The "small family-based companies" are often husband and wife teams that met through their parole officer. One woman was so deep in it that she tried to fake an accident and have herself declared legally dead before relocating and starting up her schemes again elsewhere. You could spend a year reading about it and only just scratch the surface.

To cut a long story short, it looks as if I won’t be doing the walk in after all. The publishing world is not for me. My dreams of being part of it have crumbled to dust overnight. Some people seem to waltz in there so easily, but I’m not one of them. So far, I’ve spent several hundred pounds on sending manuscripts no one will read all over the place to publishers and agents who simply are not interested. I wasted days and weeks and months writing that silly book to begin with. I should have known better and spent that time with my friends and family instead of sitting slaving away over that manuscript.

And there was that web site with tips for writers (not authors):

Few writers realize that the demand for fiction is not as great as it once was. Non-fiction easily outsells fiction nowadays.

I wish I'd read that five years ago. But maybe it wouldn't have made much difference. After all, Hyperquake was such an appealing title to work with. I remember that day so clearly and how it just zipped into my head out of the blue and after a couple of restless nights I had the story all built around that word. And I still believe it could be a best seller, if only they would take the time to read it. Then they would see. Then they would have to agree with me.