Synopsis
Mary Elizabeth Hawker (1848-1908), who wrote from 1890 onwards under the pseudonym of Lanoe Falconer, is remembered today primarily as the author of two best-selling novellas (Mademoiselle Ixe and Cecilia de Noël), five brilliant short stories (published under the title Hôtel d’Angleterre) and a slim volume of wonderful reminiscences entitled Old Hampshire Vignettes. All of these will be found in Collected Tales―but they are reinforced by eight additional short stories, one additional novella (Shoulder to Shoulder) and one additional vignette. These supplementary items, buried in the archives for more than a century, are now brought to light by Peter Rowland, Hawker’s biographer, after much patient research and dedicated delving. They are accompanied by a short series of penetrating Character Sketches, intended for a book (or books) that would never be written, plus an article on how to tackle short stories. Bearing additional witness to Lanoe Falconer’s astonishing range and versatility, this fresh material makes Collected Tales a unique and invaluable volume―one not to be missed by the growing army of this remarkable writer’s fans.
About the Author
Peter has been around since 1938 - an ardent reader of Film Fun and Knockout, supplemented by the wartime Daily Mirror and the adventures of Buck Ryan, Garth, Jane, Belinda and the Ruggles family, his earliest efforts at story-telling took the form of prolonged strip cartoon sagas, inflicted on long-suffering but ultra-patient parents, which invariably ended with the assurance 'To be continued' (a promise which, to their great relief, was not always fulfilled). A parallel career as a historian and biographer (and occasional novelist) was meanwhile pursued. Peter's most well-known achievements, to date, have been a substantial biography of David Lloyd George (1975) and an ingenious solution to the mystery of Edwin Drood (1991), but he has tackled many other less familiar subjects - overseeing a new edition of Macaulay's History of England, for example, with a couple of supplementary volumes, and compiling and editing My Early Times by Charles Dickens (the other book left unfinished by the great man). He has produced biographies of Thomas Day and William George (father of LG and a remarkable individual in his own right) and has crusaded, in particular, to re-establish Mary Elizabeth Hawker ('Lanoe Falconer') to her rightful place as a leading Victorian writer. He also compiled, as something long overdue, a detailed index to The Saturday Books.
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