Many authors are a little embarrassed by their debut publication. In retrospect it might seem gauche, pretentious, misconceived or a false step. For publishers a first book is often an investment in an author’s future, as they will rarely make money from them. All established authors will of course have written a first book and it is likely to be reprinted when they become successful. It will then perhaps for the first time earn a little money for both author and publisher as readers explore a writer’s first tentative steps.
A few authors though are happier for their debut work to disappear and some do not allow them to be reprinted. This blog looks at the first book by acclaimed author Geoff Dyer and then lists a few other books by respected contemporary authors that have been allowed to go out of print. The National Library of Scotland has a copy of almost every book published in the UK and Ireland so we are one of the few places that you can read these “vanished” books.
“Ways of Telling” is a full-length study of the work of novelist, art critic, painter and essayist John Berger (1926-2017). Berger is celebrated for the original and non-traditional way he looks at things, especially Western art. Dyer’s book takes it title from a television series and accompanying book called “Ways of Seeing” (1972), both of which were written by Berger.
In a 2009 interview published in the literary journal “Brick”, Geoff Dyer spoke about his first book “Ways of Telling”
“It’s such a timid, sub-academic book. I’ve always thought of it as a surrogate Ph.D. or something. It fulfilled its purpose in that once I had finished it I realized I’d spent all my energy writing a boring little book that completely failed to take advantage of any of the freedoms that Berger made available.“
Dyer is known today as a great literary stylist. His books are digressive and approach subjects from unlikely angles and are also often laugh out loud funny. “Ways of Telling” is a conventional critical study, looking at John Berger’s career in chronological order. The book starts at A and ends at Z where as Dyer’s later work might start at Q then go to 7 followed by B,G and W and then Red, 23, F before ending at J after passing orange.
“Ways of Telling” is an earnest and traditional book in which Dyer sits at the feet of his mentor Berger and pays tribute. The only time we get a glimpse of the writer that Dyer was to become is on the rare occasions when he is critical of Berger’s work as in these extracts about Berger’s novel “The Foot of Clive” (1962).
“The Foot of Clive is a bad novel that should be a play; even then it would not be a very good one but on screen or stage its inadequacies could generate a certain momentum; on the page they simply draw attention to themselves.”
“Berger cries ‘havoc’ and lets slip the dogs of Clive”
“Ways of Telling” is a studiously researched book that gives a useful overview of Berger’s career, no more and no less. Dyer’s “But Beautiful: a book about jazz” (1991) which is dedicated to Berger captures the improvisational nature of jazz in its prose and is a book that can be enjoyed for its own sake, even by those with no interest in its subject. Dyer met and interviewed Berger for “Ways of Telling” and they forged a lasting friendship. Dyer feared he was getting left behind by his contemporaries at University who were now embarked on lucrative careers. None of them though had been in the pub with John Berger. The book and I think more importantly meeting and befriending Berger gave Dyer the confidence to find his own literary voice. Dyer is now the author of more than twenty books all of which are available to read at the Library.
The young Geoff Dyer (he would have been 27 or 28) as he appears on the back cover of “Ways of Telling”. He would never again look quite so self-conscious in a publicity still. Photograph by Sue Jones.
Below are listed some of the other titles by highly regarded contemporary authors that you are unlikely to be able to read anywhere else in Scotland except for the National Library of Scotland. All have to a greater or lesser extent been disavowed by their authors.
Nightspawn by John Banville. (1971). NLS shelfmark NC.224.j.10
The first novel by the Booker prize winning writer. He has described it as “crotchety, posturing, absurdly pretentious”. It has been expunged from his back list.
Survivor by Octavia Butler. (1978). NLS shelfmark N2.78.1068
Regarded as a pioneering black and female science fiction writer, Butler’s reputation has grown since her death in 2006. Today she is regarded not only as an important science fiction writer but as one of the most significant writers of the late 20th century. Butler is unusual as it is her third not her first novel that she became embarrassed by. She regarded “Survivor” as full of cliches and it has not been reprinted since 1981.
Ways of Telling: The Work of John Berger by Geoff Dyer. (1986). NLS shelfmark HP1.88.2566
A Trick of the Light by Sebastian Faulks. (1984). NLS shelfmark N3.84.955
Faulks’ 1993 novel “Birdsong” is widely regarded as a modern classic and his novels are both bestsellers and critically acclaimed. His first novel “A Trick of the Light” has only been published in a single hardback edition of around 2000 copies and he has refused permission for a paperback edition to be issued. Faulks’ reasons are “it’s so far from what I went on to write that I think it was a distraction, a kind of throat-clearing”. The novel was well-received but has now effectively disappeared.
The Haunted Storm by Philip Pullman. (1972). NC.228.d.4
Philip Pullman’s first novel was the joint winner of the New English Library’s Young Writer Award in 1972. It launched an illustrious literary career. Pullman’s fantasy trilogy “His Dark Materials” is both highly regarded and much loved and he was knighted for services to literature in 2019. He dislikes his first novel so much that he refuses to admit to its existence in interviews and has removed it from his entry in “Who’s Who”. In a rare comment on the book he said it “was published by a publisher who didn’t realise it wasn’t a very good book”.
All of the above books are at the very least interesting curios and are available to read for free at the National Library of Scotland. If you are able to find any of the above for sale you will be paying at least three and possibly four figures for a copy. So if your curiosity has been piqued by any of these books or if you have read every other novel by Sebastian Faulks, Octavia E. Butler, John Banville and Philip Pullman and just want to be able to say you have read them all you can read them for free at the Library. Authors are often the harshest judges of their own work so they are almost certainly better than they think they are.