Some authors are wildly successful for a while, maybe even a long while; and yet they and their books wind up slowly fading away. If you’ve ever read a best-seller list from 100 years ago, you’ll be amazed at the number of famous books you never heard of.
Here’s a corny cover of The Viking, by Edison Marshall. Just for the record, vikings did not wear horns on their helmets. And dig the 35-cent price! This particular edition now sells for $300.
Since I wrote this in 2011, Patty and I have been able to complete our collection of Arthur Upfield’s “Bony” novels. It seems readers simply won’t let them fade away. You can still find most of them on amazon.com at reasonable prices.
I’ll bet real Vikings never grasped their swords by the blade, either. 🙂
There was a viking nicknamed “Stumpy”…
It’s sad to think about, but a lot of great art from the past is slipping away. Within my adult lifetime, you could hear Jazz Standards played live if you knew where to look. These days, sit down and play Jerome Kern and your audience will look back at you with a blank stare. Literature is more likely to be revered for its forward thinking, politically correctness than for any literary value.
Schlock writing combined with stupid ideology–can’t miss!
Sounds like half of the Pop music of the last 50 years.
With the advent of movies and TV people have stopped reading books for pleasure. Why read the book when you can see the movie, and if the book isn’t made into a movie then it isn’t worth reading – as the saying goes (that I just made up). These books mentioned in this post may make a comeback in the future – who knows? In 1990 no one could imagine the Tech Companies of today and the smart phone sensation, and that was only 30 years ago. 2050 will be the same; there will be everyday things going on that we can’t today even imagine.