I was sorry to learn of the death earlier this month of George Locke, a bookseller whom I got to know slightly some years ago. George was a well-known figure in the book trade, and he did some writing himself, as well as some publishing. He was particularly prominent in the field of sci-fi and fantasy fiction, and his imprint was called Ferret Fantasy, but our encounters concerned detective fiction.
Almost a quarter of a century ago, George published The Roger Sheringham Stories, a limited edition of 100 copies of tales about Anthony Berkeley's Golden Age sleuth. This book is now very hard to find - my copy once belonged to the late Edward D. Hoch - but George recognised Berkeley's merits at a time when his work had fallen out of favour and out of print.
He also produced The Anthony Berkeley Cox Files: notes towards a bibliography, in 1993, under the pen-name Ayresome Johns, which contains a good deal of interesting information about the enigmatic ABC. Again, this is a rare publication; at present there are two copies on Abebooks, the cheaper retailing at $350.
I bought a few items from George - not many, because his prices were high and my funds were limited - but his stock was always interesting. Two purchases in particular have brought me considerable pleasure. The first is Dorothy L. Sayers' typescript for the first chapter of "The Scoop", an expansion of the published version, which she intended to form part of a full-length novel, a Detection Club project that proved abortive. The second was Sayers' annotated copy of The Trial of Constance Kent, which I discussed in The Golden Age of Murder - utterly fascinating.
George tormented me from time to time over the years by talking rather vaguely about obscure Detection Club material which he thought he might have in his shed at home, but which he could never actually lay his hands on. Aaaaagh! He was also very deaf when I knew him, but although conversations were tricky, he was a fascinating character, and I was very sorry to hear the news. I'm remember him with affection.
I’m sorry to hear this. I met George Locke when I visited the UK many years ago--I think in 2000--after having purchased copies of The Roger Sheringham Stories, The Anthony Berkeley Cox Files, and a few other Cox items (I couldn’t afford the most exciting items). My pretext was to look at some of the lower-priced items that he still had to decide which I wanted to get--I believe I purchased a couple then--but my main reason was to catch a glimpse of the treasures. I saw his shed, and was somewhat shocked at how exposed it was, and concerned that it might catch fire (or be burgled). I tried to hint that he might want to make copies of some of his Cox typescripts to deposit with Cox’s agent, but that was a bit awkward.
ReplyDeleteI donated my spare copy of Mr. Locke’s bibliography to the library where I work so it would be available on interlibrary loan, but nobody has ever requested it. If anyone reading this (at least anyone who lives in the US or Canada--sorry, we don’t lend outside North America) is interested in seeing it, please e-mail me at arobinson@lagrange.edu and I’ll tell you how to request it through your local library. I did remove the Cox typescript before donating my copy (the main reason this is so expensive is that each copy came with an original Cox typescript).
I had started compiling a Cox bibliography of my own in the mid-1980s, and Locke’s dwarfed the one I had compiled. Luckily, since factual information isn’t copyright, I was able to incorporate some of his findings into my bibliography (online at http://home.lagrange.edu/arobinson/coxbibliogsupplement.htm ; apologies that it’s out of date and the HTML is haywire at the bottom--I lost the ability to edit the page in 2013, so it lacks such items as the Roger Sheringham story “Hot Steel” which Tony Medawar discovered in 2015). Locke’s bibliography, by listing one Cox story in the magazine Home and Country, led me to look for other issues in the British Library, where I found several Cox items not in The Anthony Berkeley Cox Files, including the Sheringham novella “The Mystery of Horne’s Copse,” reprinted in The Avenging Chance and Other Mysteries from Roger Sheringham’s Casebook, and “The Man with the Twisted Thumb,” which is in Tony Medawar’s 2018 anthology, Bodies from the Library.
Also noteworthy, George published the first version of Bob Adey's Locked Room Murders in 1979 under the Ferret imprint.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Arthur. Very interesting info, as always!
ReplyDeleteQuite right, Art, I should have mentioned that, as it was such a ground-breaking book.
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