How's that for a catchy title?
Leon Garfield is one of my favorite writers. His style (though not his plots) reminds me strongly of Charles Dickens. In fact, he was able to write so much like CD that he wrote one of the many continuations of Edwin Drood and it's actually pretty hard to see where any of the seams are joined, even when you know where they are.
He is best known for his children's books, like Smith and The Devil in the Fog -- of which he wrote a great many -- but he also produced several adult historical novels: The Prisoners of September, The Pleasure Garden, and The Sound of Coaches are, in my opinion, the best.
His books aren't fantasy, though some of them do hint at ghosts, but they are so full of eccentric characters pursuing bizarre occupations (professional and obsessional), they have a fantastical air about them. For instance -- to give an example from one of his children's books -- Smith is a young pickpocket who lives with his sisters in a cellar, where the girls spend all day altering the clothes of executed felons for the hangman so that he can sell them second-hand. Garfield's stories are full of murderers, confidence men, professional "widows," itinerant actors, and assorted oddities.
Anyone who enjoys nineteenth century writers might like to pick up something by this late-twentieth century author who wrote like he was on speaking terms with Dickens and Thackeray.
Am I the only one here who's read any of his books?
Leon Garfield is one of my favorite writers. His style (though not his plots) reminds me strongly of Charles Dickens. In fact, he was able to write so much like CD that he wrote one of the many continuations of Edwin Drood and it's actually pretty hard to see where any of the seams are joined, even when you know where they are.
He is best known for his children's books, like Smith and The Devil in the Fog -- of which he wrote a great many -- but he also produced several adult historical novels: The Prisoners of September, The Pleasure Garden, and The Sound of Coaches are, in my opinion, the best.
His books aren't fantasy, though some of them do hint at ghosts, but they are so full of eccentric characters pursuing bizarre occupations (professional and obsessional), they have a fantastical air about them. For instance -- to give an example from one of his children's books -- Smith is a young pickpocket who lives with his sisters in a cellar, where the girls spend all day altering the clothes of executed felons for the hangman so that he can sell them second-hand. Garfield's stories are full of murderers, confidence men, professional "widows," itinerant actors, and assorted oddities.
Anyone who enjoys nineteenth century writers might like to pick up something by this late-twentieth century author who wrote like he was on speaking terms with Dickens and Thackeray.
Am I the only one here who's read any of his books?
