More forthcoming titles

Three more exciting titles to announce!

We will be publishing Thomas Blackburn's autobiographical A Clip of Steel (1969) with a new foreword by his daughter, Julia Blackburn.  Earlier this year we published Blackburn's weird vampire/werewolf novel The Feast of the Wolf (1971).  Though told in what he called a 'picaresque' style, Blackburn's account of his childhood is deeply disturbing reading indeed.  His father feared two things above all else: dark skin and sex, and because he thought Thomas's skin was too dark, he tried bleaching it with frequent applications of peroxide and lemon juice; meanwhile, to stop the boy from having an erection, he provided him with a sharp-toothed metal device to clip on his penis (hence the book's title).  A fascinating and highly acclaimed memoir that those of you who enjoyed Feast of the Wolf or his brother John Blackburn's titles, will find of great interest.

Also new to our 2014 list is Hugh Walpole's The Killer and the Slain (1942), with an introduction by John Howard.  Though Walpole has been dead over 70 years, through a weird quirk of American copyright law, this one won't be in the public domain until 2064, so we're very pleased to be able to offer it now.  Walpole was a hugely popular author in the US and UK (the popularity of his book Jeremy led to an entire generation of boys being given that name), but his reputation unfortunately did not survive his death. The Killer and the Slain is one of what Walpole called his 'macabre' novels, and should be great fun.

Finally, last but definitely not least, we are thrilled to have been able to track down the estate of John Hampson and plan to publish his 1931 classic Saturday Night at the Greyhound, which was originally published by Leonard and Virginia Woolf's Hogarth Press and which was dedicated to Forrest Reid, who was a mentor to Hampson.  Hampson (1901-1955) was the author of several distinguished novels, including one, Go Seek a Stranger, which Virginia Woolf thought his best but which was never published due to its gay content.  Saturday Night was a surprise success for the Woolfs and also sold well as a Penguin paperback; it has been revived throughout the years on several occasions, but has not been in print since a 1986 paperback edition.

More new titles coming soon.  We wish everyone a happy Christmas and New Year!