I have just been reading a peach of a book with my daughter: a collection of Jeremy James stories by David Henry Wilson. They’re wickedly funny, and Wilson writes one of the most assured child’s-eye POVs I’ve seen in a long time. But they’re out of print. (Come on Macmillan bloody well bring them out again!)
When I worked at HarperCollins, Stella Paskins, one of the editors in the children’s division, snapped up a great bundle of out-of-print Diana Wynne Jones books. As a committed fan of the author’s work she was determined that they should once again be available. With a quote slapped on the new jackets from an obscure American fantasy mag which said something along the lines of ‘DWJ is the original JK’, out they went again. In no time, they had sold over a million copies across the range.
Stories like these are a rarity. DWJ was lucky enough to be the right person at the perfect time, enabled to ride the Potter wave with the help of a fan with clout. Usually the story is a very different. JK Rowling herself, to her credit, cares greatly that gems shouldn’t be consigned to the dust heap. In the past she has provided cover quotes for various older titles, such as Elizabeth Goudge’s The Little White Horse, allowing publishers to rejacket and launch books stranded in the doldrums (thanks to shelves being given over to merchandised childrens’ cruddy series). I do wish Rowling would go further still, and launch her own company, ‘Rowlings Good Reads’ or something, to take these out-of- print darlings and give them another outing.
I sincerely hope that books of deceased authors Margaret Mahy or Eva Ibbotson are never out of print. Their books are classics in the making.