There’s an implicit belief that if something is forgotten then it’s not very good. Why else was it forgotten? Brad Bigelow begs to differ. Since 2006 his Neglected Books Web site has tracked down hundreds of out-of-print novels that sparkle just as brightly as better-known classics. Now this Indiana Jones of dusty spines is releasing some of his discoveries via Recovered Books, a new imprint of Boiler House Press, and giving these ignored works a second life.
Bigelow began his quest of literary resurrection as a student at the University of Washington in the late 1970s. Browsing through the library stacks, he happened upon a book called Other Ranks, by W. V. Tilsley. He’d never heard of it, but it turned out to be a rare memoir of the First World War written from the viewpoint of the common grunt. Published in 1931, it had been buried by an avalanche of war memoirs. Bigelow was shocked to find that its powerful prose easily rivaled that of more celebrated, upper-class war writers such as Siegfried Sassoon. Wondering if it was an outlier, Bigelow began sniffing out other forgotten books in old newspaper reviews. He soon found it wasn’t.
