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The Fortune Press
The London-based Fortune Press, which published over 600 books between 1924 and 1971, was founded and run by the eccentric, "grim, unlovable" (in the words of his assistant, Timothy d'Arch Smith) Reginald Ashley Caton.
Fortune's titles were varied, from novels to poetry to non-fiction. Several famous writers, including Kingsley Amis and Philip Larkin, had early work published by the Press. A small, but important, minority of books had explicit or implicit gay characters, such as Bachelor's Hall and Flame of Freedom, or covered subjects such as public school life or corporal punishment,
which were of interest to many gay men.
The following Fortune Press titles, listed in alphabetical order by author, are currently available from Arbery Books.
Editions are first / only editions, unless otherwise specified.
[d'A S:xxx] is the reference in d'Arch-Smith's character study / bibliography R A Caton and the Fortune Press. (Prospectuses are not listed in d'Arch-Smith.) Books that have little or no explicit gay content are marked [N].
"A BOY"("Aubrey Fowkes" aka "Edmund Quinterley")
The "Diary of the Teens" books covered the life of a public schoolboy in England in the early years of the twentieth century. The series began with "Fourteen" in 1937 and finished with "Nineteen" in 1952. writer; the author published "Eight to Nine", "Ten", "Eleven" and "Twelve" as a "Diary of the Preteens". The narrator, who called himself "Aubrey Fowkes" in the diaries, also wrote under the pseudonym "Esmond Quinterley". No other biographical information is available.
[R A Caton]
Prospectus of Fortune Press Editions 1927
4 pp, 25cm * 15.5 cm
Good (slightly discoloured, rough cut), £20.00
1½ pages on Demoniality by Ludovico Maria Sinistrari, translated by Rev Montague Summers (a long-time Fortune Press collaborator and expert on black magic); notices of The Symposium of Plato (trans Francis Birrell & Shane Leslie), The Marriage of Cupid and Psyches, Kisses, the Basia of Johannes Secundus, New Preface to "The Life and Confessions of Oscar Wilde" by Frank Harris and Lord Alfred Douglas, The Collected Satires of Lord Alfred Douglas, Memoirs of a Coxcomb by John Cleland, Joan La
Romée by Frank Harris, Pop Goes The Weasel by T W H Crosland.
Price does not include postage and packing.
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[R A Caton]
Prospectus of the Fortune Press Limited Editions of the Restoration Drama
1927, 4 pp, 25.4cm * 19 cm
Good (cover has small stains and foxing; inside generally clean), £20.00
1½ pages on The Complete Works of Thomas Shadwell, edited by Rev Montague Summers (a long-time Fortune Press collaborator and expert on black magic); notices of Covent Garden Drollery 1672 (including early Dryden), Roscius Anglicanus by John Downes, edited by Summers, and The Complete Works of Thomas Southerne, edited by Summers.
Price does not include postage and packing.
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"Gervas d'OLBERT" (Terence White Gervais) Chastisement Across The Ages: A Scientific Survey [N]
1967 [d'A S: 415]
2nd impression of second edition (first edition: 1956)
Very Good, £12.50
The title says it all - although "comprehensive" might be a more appropriate word than "scientific".
Chapter topics include [Chastisement] in Proverbs and Slang / of and by Famous Men / in Education / in Religion / in the Family / in Social Life / in Politics / War / Literature / Drama, Opera and Film..
Là-bas [N]
1946 [d'A S: 298] signed by Alan Hull Waltonco-writer of preface
Good, £50.00
"Huysmans' most famous work after À rebours (Against the Grain). Là-Bas deals with the subject of Satanism in contemporary France, and the novel stirred a certain amount of controversy on its first appearance. It is the first of Huysmans' books to feature the character Durtal, a thinly disguised portrait of the author himself, who would be the protagonist of all Huysmans' subsequent novels: En route, La cathédrale and L'oblat."
En Ménage (Living Together) [N]
trans & intro by J W G Sandiford-Pellé
1969 [d'A S: 305]
Two copies, Very Good, £17.50 (pictured), £15.00
"the story of André Jayant, a novelist who leaves his wife for first one woman, then another . . . The novel also features the artist Cyprien Tibaille, André's best friend, who had already appeared in Huysmans' previous novel, Les Soeurs Vatard. En Ménage is partly autobiographical and both André and Cyprien contain elements of the author's own personality."
Nicholas Moore (16 November 1918 – 26 January 1986) was an English poet, associated with the New Apocalyptics in the 1940s, who later dropped out of the literary world.
22-year-old Julian Ferrers, the only son of a domineering industrialist in the English Midlands, runs away to London when his father learns that he has made his girlfriend pregnant. In the big city, he finds himself torn between the strong friendship he feels for 35-year-old Don, who gives him somewhere to live, and the love he has for 21-year-old Olive, a streetwalker who has taken to him.
This Sorry Scheme
1960 [d'A S: 570: gives actual publication as 10 Oct 1962]
Good, £100.00
"A picture of provincial life, which among other things, provides a caustic criticism of the irrational and pious bumbledom which punishes with extreme severity the so-called misdemeanours of a homosexual curate yet ignores the infinitely more disastrous consequences of a young wife's loose living while her husband is away fighting."
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