Lost authors

How many once-respected authors are now out of print, their books almost impossible to get hold of? Tom Boncza-Tomaszewski in The Independent spent some time scouring the internet for once-familiar names.

I decide to speak to Stuart Kelly, author of The Book of Lost Books, due from Penguin next year. "Literary reputations are predictably precarious," he tells me. "Although one might remember that Iris Murdoch and Muriel Spark were both shortlisted for the inaugural Booker Prize in 1969, memory has been less kind to Barry England, GM Williams and even the first winner, PH Newby."