Review: Spring List, by Ralph Arnold

Review: Spring List, by Ralph Arnold

by Rich Horton

I picked this up at the annual St. Louis County Book Fair (same place and time that I picked by my copy of The Ante-Room, reviewed here.) It was cheap and I like books and am interested in book publishing and I figure this would be a comedy about a publisher trying to assemble their spring list of books. It turns about to be something a bit different, though it's still a comedy about publishing, and quite entertaining. 

Ralph Arnold (1906-1970) was for a long time in publishing with Constable and Co., rising to Chairman in 1958, and retiring in 1962. He was also a writer, of light fiction (such as Spring List), detective novels, memoirs and history. He was at school briefly with Ian Fleming, and was a good friend of Fleming's brother Peter. He was related to novelist Edwin L. Arnold, though I'm not sure in what way exactly -- likely a nephew, great nephew, or cousin. (Edwin L. Arnold was the author of Lieut. Gullivar Jones: His Vacation, a Martian story that seems a likely direct influence on Burroughs,)

Spring List, published in 1956, is told from the point of view of Arthur Lynsted, who has a senior position at the firm Southease and Piddinghoe. Arthur has a wife who is a successful writer of what seems to be women's fiction, and a teenaged son. Elizabeth's bestsellers bring in a good deal more money than Arthur's salary, but Arthur insists that he support the family entirely. So Arthur is in just a slightly discontented mood when his childhood friend Diana comes by to talk about the novel she had submitted to the firm. Diana is married to another childhood friend, General Sir Alured Flowers, who had had a notoriously brilliant Second World War. Diana's novel is a light mystery, and surprisingly good for someone who had never shown any interest in writing.

There is some other publishing talk, particularly about Arthur's rival Edward Sligo, whose firm publishes Elizabeth Lynsted's books (Arthur having refused them for ethical reasons), and who also published a hugely successful novel by one Jas Cobham, who alas hasn't written a second book despite a large advance. Arthur's firm reluctantly decides to publish Diana's novel, though they're unlikely to do much more than break even, in the hopes of convincing her husband the General to write a memoir of his time in the Army, which will surely be a bestseller.

This all comes to a head when he goes to visit Diana, in their old home town. Ostensibly the visit is to finalize the contract, but Arthur is supposed to try to get Alured Flowers to write his memoir, and privately he's just slightly tempted to make time with Diana. But he soon learns that Alured has disappeared, and also that Jas Cobham is around too, having bought Arthur's childhood home with his advance money. Then Edward Sligo shows up, clearly on a similar mission to Arthur's ...

It's a very light novel, but it's pretty fun. The plot has some convolutions which are nicely done, of the sort that the reader likely will guess but will still enjoy seeing play out. The hints at "inside publishing" are pretty minor, though they probably do reflect some truths about how it was conducted in England in the 1950s. By no means a deathless masterpiece, this is still a nice book. As far as I can tell it was never reprinted after the UK edition, from John Murray in 1956, and the American edition, from Macmillan the following year.