Books Vintage

What do you mean by ‘Vintage’?  A question that is often asked.  It’s something between the Classics – which we think of as mostly up to the 19th century – and modern books, falling roughly between the 1920s and the 1970s (with a bit of leeway in both directions).

Many authors of this time have been forgotten completely or only remembered for certain books. Wilkie Collins, for example, is remembered for The Moonstone and Woman in White and if people think of Winston Graham they mostly think of the Poldark books, yet both were quite prolific writers.

There is now, however, a renewed interest in many of the old writers and publishers such as Persephone are bringing out new editions. The British Library Crime Classics has seen a great success with re-prints of old forgotten crime writers such as E.C.R. Lorac, John Bude and George Bellairs.

We don’t all read the same book – just talk about ones we each have read.  Books we have read recently include R.F. Delderfield’s Dreaming Suburb; Dorothy Whipple’s They Were Sisters; Evelyn Waugh’s A Handful of Dust; Jan de Hartog’s The Centurion and J.B. Priestley’s The Good Companions.

As well as re-prints there are now websites which offer free downloads of old, out-of-print books. Anyone interested in old authors can search such as https://www.gutenberg.org/ for free downloads (as long as you have something to read them on!).