Amazon & Censorship (or, to paraphrase Simone de Beauvoir, "Must we burn e-books"?)

As Amazon increasingly gains a monopoly over bookselling in the United States, they're also gaining a really terrifying power to control what you read.

Case in point: we received an email today whose subject line was "Alert from Amazon KDP".  The email says, in its entirety:

Hello,

We’re contacting you regarding the following book(s) that you submitted for sale in our Kindle Store:

The Sins of the Cities of the Plain [Unabridged 1881 text with a new introduction] (Valancourt Classics) (B00926PXEQ)

During our review process, we found that your book contains content that is in violation of our content guidelines.  As a result, we will not be offering this book for sale.    

Our content guidelines are published on the Kindle Direct Publishing website.

To learn more, please see: https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=A1KT4ANX0RL55

Well, I clicked on the link, and it didn't take me anywhere.  So I wrote them back to ask why this historically significant gay text from 1881 does not meet their "content guidelines".  I got a response shortly thereafter, which says:

Hello,

As stated in our content guidelines, found at https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=A1KT4ANX0RL55I, we reserve the right to determine what content we consider to be appropriate. This content includes both the cover art image and the content within the book.

We’re unable to elaborate further on specific details regarding our content guidelines.

Or, to translate: "We don't have to tell you why, and there's nothing at all you can do about it."

Which is fine, I suppose, from a legal point of view.  They're a private company and I wouldn't support, say, forcing them to sell books they didn't want to sell.  But as other e-book readers flop and get left behind in Amazon's Kindle's dust, and as Amazon puts more and more brick-and-mortar bookstores (Borders, anyone?) out of business, they now have, and will continue increasingly to have, nearly unfettered power in determining what you can or can't read.  

Of course, Sins of the Cities of the Plain probably runs afoul of Amazon's "pornography policy", which reads: "We don't accept pornography or offensive depictions of graphic sexual acts", but then, most other books written for readers aged above 18 or so probably do too.  It all depends on how you define "pornography" or "graphic sexual acts."  Curiously, you can buy the Marquis de Sade's books on Kindle (Juliette is $12.07!)  So the "pornography" policy seems, to say the least, a little imprecise.

I'm most irritated by the fact that an email from "Carlos S.", presumably an omniscient arbiter of good literary taste, is all it takes to eliminate one of our books from Amazon, with no right of remonstrance or appeal.

For now, you can still buy Sins and all our other titles in paperback, though if you feel at all certain that this will always be the case, you're more confident (or more gullible) than we are....

Cover art

As you may have noticed, many of our recent releases have included the original dust jacket art from the British first editions.  Particularly in the 1950s, British dust jackets were often strikingly attractive, and where the original jacket is worth reusing for aesthetic or historical reasons, we've been trying to do so.  You'll also notice on the first page of each volume a short paragraph about the artist or designer.  What we wonder is why more publishers don't reuse the vintage art -- for example, this was the original jacket art for John Braine's Room at the Top (1957), by John Minton (1917-1957), a troubled gay artist who killed himself less than two months before the book was published:

We think this is a beautiful image and well worth using for our new edition.  The alternative, I suppose would be something along the lines of the British paperback edition:

Or, take the fun original jacket art for John Wain's picaresque comedy Hurry on Down (1953):

There's nothing really wrong with the cover of the most recent Penguin reissue, but it's not really all that distinctive and certainly doesn't do much to suggest the mood of the book:

One thing that's really striking about some of these very old covers is how remarkably modern they still look after 60 years.  We were really excited to discover the art of Val Biro and even more excited to discover that, born in 1921, he's still alive, and still gets up every day at age 92 to paint.  During the 1950s and 60s, Biro did as many as 3000 British book jackets, including ones by some of the big best-sellers of the time, like J. B. Priestley, Nevil Shute, and C. S. Forester.  Here are the two that he has agreed to let us reuse:

A little bit later than these, but no less notable, is artist Tom Adams (b. 1926), who has very graciously allowed us to reuse his very impressive art for two major novels, Barry England's Booker-shortlisted Figures in a Landscape (1968) and David Storey's Booker winner Saville (1976).  Adams is most famous perhaps for his Agatha Christie paperback covers, but his art adorns the jackets of some of the major British novels of the 1970s, including John Fowles's The Collector and The Magus, Patrick White's The Vivisector, and Storey's Saville.  See his gallery here: http://www.tomadamsuncovered.co.uk/gallery.html. The ominous black helicopter in the England novel becomes an insectlike nightmare in Adams's classic art:

This is the gorgeous, dreamlike painting used for Saville:

Because many of these jackets -- and the overall practice of mid-20th century British jacket design in general -- are so important culturally and historically, and because so many of these illustrations are so delightful, we really enjoy using them and hope you like them too.  What do you think? 

Publishing the best in award-winning contemporary British fiction

Since we started publishing in 2005, Valancourt Books has aimed to bring readers the best in neglected and out-of-print Gothic & horror fiction, gay-interest literature, and neglected literary classics.  Recently, we've been amazed to discover that a great deal of critically acclaimed, award-winning British fiction of the 20th century is out of print and often nearly unobtainable, and we wanted to take this opportunity to spotlight some of the recent additions to our list:

Booker Prize

Founded in 1968, the Booker Prize has become the world's most-watched literary event each year. Valancourt Books is thrilled to announce a new U.S. edition of David Storey's Booker winner Saville (1976), which The Observer has called 'the best of all the Bookers'.  Valancourt will also be reprinting Storey's brilliant Pasmore (1972), shortlisted for that year's Booker Prize, and his Radcliffe (1963), in a 50th anniversary edition.

Saville (1976)

"Reading this magnificent book is like drinking pure spring water from cupped hands. It has no false notes, no heaviness of emphasis, no editorial manipulations of plot to prove a point. One becomes so totally involved in the lives of these people that their every word and action becomes charged with meaning. . . . Reminiscent of a nineteenth-century classic." - The Sunday Times

"Mesmerically readable, Saville is a revelation. It is alive with light and a kind of perpetual motion." - The Times

"Saville is not one word too long. It was worth the ten years it took to write for the result of this industry is a clarity of style and a purity of design. . . . An epic narrative, crowded, naturalistic, and riveting." - The Evening Standard

"Not once during its 506 pages did the familiar man with the stop-watch intervene to challenge my total immersion in the life of Colin Saville." - New Statesman

"A major achievement." - Times Literary Supplement

"No one has written of this classic dilemma with such detail and penetration as we find in Saville." - The Listener

Pasmore (1972)

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize

"Swift, clean and painful . . . as good as anything he has done." - Sunday Times

"Memorable." - New York Times

"Violent, shocking, a huge novel, the explosive story of a strange passion . . . a climax never before described in fiction." - Sunday Times

Also forthcoming is Barry England's classic thriller Figures in a Landscape (1968), shortlisted for the inaugural Booker Prize and long out of print.  The novel tells the story of two prisoners who escape in an unspecified country and flee the pursuit of a black helicopter.  The Daily Mail said it 'achieves a tension that is almost unbearable.'

Somerset Maugham Award

The great British novelist and short story writer Somerset Maugham began this award in 1947; it is awarded each year to the writer under the age of 35 of the best book of the past year.  Valancourt Books is proud to be issuing several Somerset Maugham Winners, including the following:

The Dividing Stream (1951) by Francis King

With a new introduction by Paul Binding

"A young novelist on whose future I would willingly gamble . . . I strongly recommend this book." 

- C. P. Snow, Sunday Times

"A most enviable achievement. . . . This author is a genuine novelist whose future work is of importance to the life of the English novel." - Compton Mackenzie

"I find this novel rare, and indeed astonishing." - The Observer

Play Things (1972) by Peter Prince

With a new foreword by the Author

"It is exciting, relevant, a wholesale gift for the top-notch department." - Books and Bookmen

"Agreeably readably ... light-hearted throughout, and altogether this book is a promising beginning to Mr. Prince's career as a novelist." - The Listener

The Cormorant (1986)

by Stephen Gregory

With a new introduction by the author

'[An] artful first novel, reminiscent of the tales of Poe . . . Gregory uses a low-key style and subtle lyricism to build an atmosphere of nightmarish horror in a tale that could become a classic.' - Publishers Weekly 

'[A] first-class terror story with a relentless focus that would have made Edgar Allan Poe proud.' - New York Times 

'[N]o summary can do justice to the subtlety of Gregory's first novel, with its fresh, vivid, sensual prose and its superb descriptive and evocative power. An extraordinary novel - original, compelling, brilliant.' -Library Journal 

'A work of tremendous self-assurance that leaves the reader with a lingering sense of unease and announces the arrival of a considerable new talent.' - British Book News 

James Tait Black Memorial Prize

The oldest annual literary prize in Great Britain, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize has been awarded to the best novel published each year since 1919, and previous winners have included D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, J. B. Priestley, Aldous Huxley, Iris Murdoch, and many other extremely famous writers.  Valancourt Books is proud to be publishing the following James Tait Black winners:

Young Tom (1944), as part of the Tom Barber Trilogy

by Forrest Reid

Edited by Michael Matthew Kaylor

The Ha-Ha (1961)

by Jennifer Dawson

"A remarkably talented first novel . . . [the] heroine is a convincing and sympathetic character, and when her mind begins to shift into the nightmare perspective of schizophrenia the writing creates an atmosphere of quiet terror." - Observer

"Cool, short, tender and occasionally as prettily ruthless as the impact of a stiletto heel . . . twice as alarming because everything is implied rather than explicit." - Tatler

"Interesting, haunting novel." - New Statesman

"A writer of marked originality." - Punch

"A novel about madness which succeeds completely." - Daily Telegraph

"A little masterpiece." - Bookman

"An extraordinary achievement." - Listener

Valancourt Books Sale!

[UPDATE (5:30 PM 4/10/13): We're deleting books as people order them, so if it's still listed, it *should* still be available.]

I regret that these offers are only available to U.S. customers because of shocking recent increases in overseas mailing costs.  Uncorrected proof copies are in like-new condition but may contain a small number of typographical errors corrected for the final book, or may have variations in cover art.  Shipping is a flat $5 per order, regardless of how many books you order.

Overstock copies (1 of each unless otherwise noted, first come, first served):

G.W.M. Reynolds, The Mysteries of London ($20, reg. $30)

Charlotte Smith, The Story of Henrietta ($10, reg. $18)

Halloween Specials: James Jenkins the Miser ($5, reg. $10) & The Stranger Knight ($5; reg. $10)

"Scratch & Dent"

We have four copies of Stephen Gilbert's The Burnaby Experiments in new condition, missing their title page ($5 each)

Advance proof copies ($10 each; 1 of each; first come, first served):

Kenneth Martin, Aubade

Kenneth Martin, Waiting for the Sky to Fall

Gerald Kersh, Nightshade and Damnations

Richard Marsh, The Complete Adventures of Sam Briggs

Message on Facebook or Twitter (@Valancourt_B) or contact us through the website form or via email to reserve any books you are interested in.  Thank you!

Spotlight on some forthcoming titles

Recently I joked to someone (perhaps unfunnily; my sense of humor leaves much to be desired) that Valancourt Books was looking to add a little diversity to its catalogue: by including some living authors.  Here are some of the titles by contemporary authors that we've recently added to our forthcoming list and which I think are really interesting:

The Fourth of June (1962)

by David Benedictus

Introduction by the Author

David Benedictus (b. 1938) published this novel at age 24 and it was an immediate bestseller and succès de scandale.  Ian Fleming (yes, that Ian Fleming) wrote for the Sunday Times that it was 'one of the most brilliant first novels since the war'; Kenneth Allsop for the Daily Mail called it 'brilliantly clever' and 'mercilessly funny'; Penelope Mortimer gave it 'almost unqualified praise', and in general the reviews were terrific.  The entire print run sold out and it was also published in paperback and in an American edition.

In The Fourth of June, Benedictus set out to savage one of the most august institutions in England -- Eton College, founded in 1440, and responsible for educating the sons of the noble and wealthy, including numerous prime ministers and other top British figures, for generations.  Scarfe, a 'guinea-pig', the son of a Norwich farmer, doesn't fit in among the sons of the gentry, and when he transgresses their code of conduct, they set out to teach him a lesson -- by beating him with a cane, resulting in paralysis and a great deal of consternation.  But don't let that fool you: the book is indeed terribly funny.  Benedictus is still writing; in 2009, he published the first Winnie the Pooh sequel in more than 80 years, Return to the Hundred Acre Wood.

The Cormorant (1986) 

by Stephen Gregory

With a new introduction by the Author

Another quite different but also hugely successful first novel was Stephen Gregory's (b. 1952) The Cormorant, which the New York Times said was 'a first-class terror story with a relentless focus that would have made Edgar Allan Poe proud'; Publishers Weekly recognised its 'nightmarish horror reminiscent of the tales of Poe, in a tale that could become a classic'.  It won the highly prestigious Somerset Maugham Award for 1987 and now returns to print in this new edition featuring an all-new introduction by the author.

In The Cormorant, a young husband and wife toil away in the city at jobs they despise in order to support themselves and their newborn baby, when they receive a bit of unexpected news. An eccentric old uncle has died and left them a sum of money and a remote cottage in Wales.  There's only one small catch: the uncle had rescued a cormorant from an oil spill and kept it as a pet, and the family can only keep their bequest as long as they care for the cormorant. They figure it's merely a minor inconvenience and might perhaps even be somewhat amusing. Until the cormorant reveals its malevolent side. The novel was adapted by the BBC as a motion picture starring a young Ralph Fiennes.

The Young Director (1961)

by Martyn Goff

With a new introduction by Dr Martin Dines

Martyn Goff (b. 1923) has made an immeasurable impact on modern British literature, but, curiously enough, not through his fiction writing. Instead, he is best known as the man responsible for the Man Booker Prize, which has probably replaced the Nobel Prize as the most-watched literary award in the world; he oversaw the formation of the award and supervised the process from 1969 until his retirement in 2002. But before this, he had a career as a novelist, publishing several very daring gay-themed novels in the 1950s and 1960s.

When he wrote his first novel, The Plaster Fabric (1957), his straight publisher told him, 'You know, this book could land both of us in the Old Bailey. You're not worried?'  He had reason to be: at the time, homosexuality was a criminal offence and was also potentially ruinous for a young writer starting out, and publishers and authors could be hailed into court on indecency charges for publishing books dealing frankly with it.  Goff published the book anyway, and when John Betjeman reviewed it favourably, 'the authorities could hardly condemn it', as Goff later remarked.

The Youngest Director followed in 1961 (and probably holds a special place in Goff's heart, since in 1968, a young man in Finland read the book and wrote a fan letter to Goff; the two have been partners ever since). It's a fascinating book, in which Leonard Bissel seems to have everything going for him: he's 32, owns a house in Chelsea, drives a sporty new MG, has just met the love of his life, and has just been named the youngest director of the Colorado Trading Corporation. There's just one problem. The chairman of the corporation keeps up with all the latest efficiency research from America and the data clearly show that married executives are more productive and reliable employees than unmarried ones, and pressure is brought to bear on Leonard: either he marries, or he'll find himself demoted or out of a job. The problem is, Leonard wants to live in a committed, monogamous relationship with John, a hotel porter; his family and employer do not know he is gay, and of course gay marriage is quite impossible. The novel is extremely well written and remains a fascinating read over 50 years later.

Body Charge (1971)

by Hunter Davies

With a new introduction by the author

This one's a little lesser known, but I really enjoyed it.  Hunter Davies has been a prominent figure in British popular culture for half a century now, first with his novel Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush (1968), which became a major Hollywood film, and with his book on the Beatles, the only authorized biography of the band.  More recently, he's been known for his writing on football and his journalism.  In 1971, he published a curious book called Body Charge, which features a rather immature 30-year-old protagonist (rather in denial about being gay) who drives for a shady unlicensed cab company because he enjoys the flexible hours, which allow him plenty of free time for his favourite pastime: playing football, usually with teens about half his age.  In the course of his work, he picks up three different interesting fares, an egocentric bisexual TV producer, an aspiring young football star, and a closeted gay married man with a couple of kids.  As he becomes mixed up with these different individuals, he also finds himself involved in the midst of a murder investigation. An unusual book, but compulsively readable and oddly compelling.

It unfortunately appeared in the early 1970s, one of the lowest points ever in the history of British book design, as evidenced by one of the least appealing covers we have ever seen.

Rediscovering the works of Kenneth Martin

Recently, and quite by accident, I discovered a couple of novels published during the 1950s by a writer named Kenneth Martin.  I happened upon him when I noticed that one of his books, Aubade (1957), was included in the Gay Men's Press series of Gay Modern Classics from the 1980s; I then saw that he had published another book, whose title for some reason grabbed my attention, Waiting for the Sky to Fall (1959).  Waiting had never been republished, and I didn't know anything about it, so I grabbed it from the library on a whim.  All I knew about the author was the statement on the back cover of the Aubade reprint that he had been 16 when he wrote that novel; my rudimentary math skills told me he'd have been 18 then when he wrote Waiting.

I started reading Waiting and was immediately struck by it.  For a novel written by an 18 year old, it was extremely striking, and some parts of it were really excellent.  The main character, an aspiring writer, was obviously in some respects autobiographical, and the two interesting gay characters, Jonathan and George were presumably based on people the young author must have known.  

Again making use of my limited math skills, I did some calculations and decided that if the author was in his late teens in 1959, he'd be in his 70s today and might well still be alive.  Unfortunately, there was absolutely nothing to be found about him online: he had no website, no Wikipedia page.  The Gay Men's Press had gone belly up years ago, so writing to them would be no use.  And unfortunately, Kenneth Martin is not a terribly uncommon name.  

Nonetheless, with a couple hours of literary detective work online, I thought I had found him: there was a Kenneth Martin who'd be about the right age, living in San Francisco, working as a psychotherapist.  I had seen that Martin had published a novel in the 1980s with GMP that was set in San Francisco, so I figured this wasn't a bad bet.  I picked up the phone and called him.  I said, "Is this Kenneth Martin the novelist?"  After a noticeable pause, the man on the other end said yes.  I told him I was interested in reprinting Waiting for the Sky to Fall, and he said, "I'm surprised."  He told me he thought the book was dead and buried years ago and would never see the light of day again.

It wasn't till after I spoke with him the first time that I read the long introduction he wrote to the 1989 reissue of Aubade.  The story it tells is a very sad one.  Born in 1939, he was adopted into an impoverished family in Northern Ireland.  His family had no money, no education, and Martin ended up teaching himself most of what he knew by reading as many books as he could get his hands on.  He knew early on that he wanted to be a writer, and he dreamed of moving to London and being a wealthy and famous novelist there.  

Kenneth Martin (from the jacket of Aubade)

At age 16, he wrote Aubade, a short novel about a teenager who falls in love with a boy a few years older than himself.  The subject matter was daring, especially for a first novel by someone so young, but it would have been daring if written by almost anyone: homosexuality was illegal, and even writing about it could land an author and his publisher in court, as had happened to Walter Baxter and the Heinemann firm only a couple years earlier.  Martin tells the story in full in his introduction, but in short, Aubade was accepted for publication by Chapman and Hall, Dickens's publishers a century earlier, and with the advance he received, Martin moved to London.  Aubade was a surprise success, selling some 5000 copies and going into a second printing and an edition published in America.  Martin was immediately a minor celebrity, being interviewed for articles that couldn't mention what his book was actually about.

Waiting for the Sky to Fall was his second book, and was the novel he expected to cement his status as one of the most promising young writers of his generation.  Some of the reviews were good: one major newspaper said it was better than Nobel Prize winner Saul Bellow's Henderson the Rain King.  Somewhat surprisingly, the critic for the Catholic Herald was a fan; meanwhile, the Yorkshire Post named it one of the ten best novels of the year.  But many of the reviews were downright ugly and extremely discouraging, probably especially so for Martin, who was very young and sensitive. A third novel followed, also not successful, and Martin gave up fiction for journalism.  Eventually he moved to the United States, became an American citizen, and now works as a psychotherapist.  The devastating effect on him of the lack of success of Waiting for the Sky to Fall can be sensed poignantly in his introductions to the two novels, which will be republished by Valancourt in May 2013.

Valancourt is actively rediscovering and republishing important early British gay fiction, including works by Forrest Reid, Francis King, C.H.B. Kitchin, Michael Nelson, Walter Baxter, and others, and we are very pleased to be reissuing Martin's first two novels as part of our 20th century series.  Kenneth Martin is blogging about his novels and their republication at his new website: http://www.kennethmartinwriter.com.  More on Martin and our two new editions can be found here.

A quick update

A quick update -- we have been extremely busy in January, having sent five books to the printers so far, with no end in sight!

Richard Marsh's The Complete Adventures of Sam Briggs (1904-15) is now available, and four more will be available shortly: Francis Lathom's The One Pound Note and Other Tales (1820), Claude Houghton's I Am Jonathan Scrivener (1930) and This Was Ivor Trent (1935) and Oliver Onions's The Hand of Kornelius Voyt (1939).

Headed to press very shortly will be Thomas Blackburn's The Feast of the Wolf (1971), Ronald Fraser's Flower Phantoms (1926), and James Malcolm Rymer's The Black Monk (1845).

Our 20th century list continues to grow and we are releasing the books as fast as we are able.  We are extraordinarily pleased to have added two titles by Colin Wilson: his first novel, Ritual in the Dark (1960) and The Philosopher's Stone (1969), both of which we were shocked to find were out of print.  We also discovered, somewhat by accident, the fine novels of Kenneth Martin, Aubade (1957), written when he was 16, and which was controversial on its release for its depiction of same-sex love between two young men, and Waiting for the Sky to Fall (1959). Both will feature introductions by the author.

We are planning to issue new releases at a feverish pace throughout 2013, so make sure to follow us not only here but on Facebook and Twitter for updates on all the newest developments.