If you've been following my reading this year you'll know that I'm working my way through Colin Watson's Flaxborough chronicles. Watson also wrote this book, about the early days of crime and thriller fiction and it's an interesting read ... if you can find a copy. It was written in 1971 so it's long out of print. There's copies on eBay but I confess I found an ePub on the Web (strictly illegal as it must still be in copyright but whatever).

It's largely a series of essays on aspects of the genre but it also reveals a lot about how people read books, from Dickens onwards, with particular reference to the golden days of lending libraries between the wars where some writers were churning out books at a fantastic rate. Some names you will have heard of, like Christie, some you may have heard of, like Edgar Wallace (who, by the way, at his prime was the author of 25% of all books being published in Britain), but what about A. E. W. Mason or William Le Queux, to name but two of the many authors of whom I'd never heard.

Overall a fascinating read and I may find myself a dead tree copy of eBay now, not that Watson's estate will be any better off as a result mind you ...