The world of writing

Works lost and found, stories coming full circle and rumours going round – don’t get dizzy in our roundup of the wonderful world of writing

AN INVISIBLE GIANT

Gertrude Trevelyan is not exactly a household name these days but she was a literary sensation after the publication of her debut,

Appius and Virginia, in 1932.

The story of a forty-year-old single woman who vows to bring up a baby orangutan Appius as a human, and increasingly depends on him to overcome her loneliness, ‘the novel was heralded by the

Spectator as “exciting both in promise and achievement”, while the eminent critic Gerald Gould wrote: “So original is it that I have scruples about writing the word ‘novel’ at all.”,’ reports Alison

Flood for The Guardian.

By 1940, Trevelyan had written seven more novels, until a bomb hit her Notting Hill home during the Blitz. She died of her injuries in February 1941, aged 37. Her death certificate apparently described her as ‘Spinster – an Authoress’.

Scott Pack, former Waterstones head buyer and now publisher at Lightning Books, has teamed up with Abandoned Bookshop to republish Appius and Virginia. ‘If she was a bloke, she’d still be in print today, without question,’ he told Alison. ‘All of Aldous Huxley’s books are still in print – some of them are amazing, some aren’t that great. He was doing interesting social commentary, and also experimental stuff. She was doing the same sort of thing and no one’s heard of her.’

The new edition of Appius and Virginia is the first time any of work has been reissued since her death.

Order your copy from Eye Books, http://eye-books.com