Welcome to the third Backlisted Special. Although Andy remains deep in sabbatical mode, John and Nicky are joined by good friends of the show and literary agents Becky Brown and Norah Perkins, returning for their third appearance, having previously discussed the work of Barbara Pym in episode 109 and Dorothy B. Hughes in episode 142.

Becky and Norah are joint custodians of the Curtis Brown Heritage list of literary estates, where they look after the works and legacies of over 150 writers including Iris Murdoch, Stella Gibbons, Douglas Adams, Elizabeth Bowen, Gerald and Lawrence Durrell, Iain Banks and Laurie Lee. They have been friends for ten years and colleagues for five.

Becky moonlights as an anthologist and her latest book, Blitz Spirit: Voices of Britain Living Through Crisis, mapped the arc of the Second World War via the diaries of Mass Observation contributors, and was published by Hodder in 2020. In her spare time, Norah runs The Pearl Press, a letterpress printing and bookbinding workshop in Deal.

The format of these specials differs from the main show in that they will feature a guest choosing a number of books in an area they know and care about. Today, Norah and Becky have selected six books from the archive that they feel should be better known and more widely discussed.

Books mentioned:
Blitz Spirit: Voices of Britain Living Through Crisis - Becky Brown
One Fine Day - Mollie Panter-Downes
Mistletoe Malice - Kathleen Farrell
The Charioteer - Mary Renault
The Land and The Garden - Vita Sackville-West
Merry Hall - Beverley Nichols
Conversations in Sicily - Elio Vittorini
The Light and the Dark - C.P. Snow

Other links:
Lucy Scholes - Meet the archive moles, Prospect, March 2023
McNally Editions - Lucy Scholes’s paperback archive list
Faber Editions - their archive list
An Obsessive Type - Nicky’s BBC R4 programme on the Doves typeface (2016)