Phyllis Paul: Twice Lost, Pulled Down, Invisible Darkness, A Little Treachery, more

[Extollager]

It sounds to me like most, at least, of Paul's novels are "orphan works."

Orphan work - Wikipedia

I have tried to find out who (if anyone or anything) the copyright holders are, without success.

There must still be people alive who knew the evidently reclusive Phyllis Paul. But so far as I have been able to find out, when she died, no one inherited her literary estate. Can it be that no one inherited anything?

 

[Extollager]

Tantalizing news about the possibility of a final Paul novel that was rejected by publishers and is now lost -- but will it be lost forever? The column includes a little new biographical information. It seems we know something about her estate now that I didn't know before. But this doesn't lead to the resolution of all questions.

-----Her main legatee, aside from a substantial donation to a campaigning animal charity, the League Against Cruel Sports, was a friend, Miss Lydia M Lee of Tadworth, Surrey. The solicitor also gave the very interesting information that Phyllis Paul had left an unpublished novel, 'Hedera', which had been rejected by Heinemann and Chatto & Windus. The title appears to refer to the botanical name for ivy. He had sent the manuscript to Miss Lee. Glen therefore wrote to her in January 1980 to ask about this, but sadly his letter was returned 7 days later, stamped 'return to sender' and 'deceased'.

Naturally this was tantalising. Could there still be an unseen novel by this remarkable writer in existence? Guided by Glen’s previous research, I have spent some time trying to trace Miss Lee’s own estate, which I established had been left to a niece, the heir (so to speak) of Phyllis Paul’s heir. With a clue discovered by Doug Anderson, I was recently able to make contact with them and received a kind reply. Unfortunately, Miss Lee’s legatee regretted to advise that they did not know anything about the lost book: it did not survive among her effects.------

Wormwoodiana: The Last, Lost Novel of Phyllis Paul

I'm not trying to drive everyone crazy with little bits about a highly obscure author (obscure as regards information about her) who would prove, if one actually read her, to be not all that good. Actually, I've found all of her novels that I've read to be at least interesting, and usually rather better than just that.

Once again, there are two of her novels that shouldn't be all that hard to get hold of on interlibrary loan, because they had American editions and Lancer Books reprinted them in paperback: Twice Lost and Pulled Down (Lancer: Echo of Guilt). I haven't read the latter yet (kind of saving it for a rainy day), but I've read Twice Lost twice, and it's a good introduction to her work. However, the books are (evidently) being snapped up and booksellers have caught on, so prices are nasty. I would not be prepared to say that Twice Lost is so good that you should think about paying $43.94 or more for a Lancer paperback edition.

Twice Lost by Paul - AbeBooks

Worldcat confirms that multiple copies of Twice Lost are available in American libraries. Non-American readers might check too.

WorldCat.org: The World's Largest Library Catalog

 

[Extollager]

Here is a summary of Phyllis Paul's novel A Cage for the Nightingale. I thought it was interested that she asserted a passing reference to three 17th-century authors who commented on witchcraft, only one of whom (Browne) I would have thought would be pretty likely to be recognized by many of her readers. She might have been indulging herself or she might honestly have thought that these names would be likely to be known to her readers. I don't know how much sense she had of "ordinary people." Like Shakespeare, she is an author about whom much less is known than some of her readers wish.

 

[Extollager]

My notes on A Cage for the Nightingale mention Richard Baxter. I don't know how widely known his Certainty of the Worlds of Spirits ever was, but his Saint's Everlasting Rest was very popular, at least in abridged editions. My understanding is that the second part thereof has some material relating to supernatural evidences. It may be that Phyllis Paul was acquainted with that book and that in it she found the material that suggested the passage in Cage.

 

[Extollager]

Big news for those interested in Phyllis Paul -- one of her novels, Pulled Down, is due to be reprinted:

Phyllis Paul

I have a Lancer paperback of this one, titled Echo of Guilt, which I have been saving for some day when I want a new Paul novel in a convenient paperback form, so I haven't read it yet. My sense from the little I've seen, by people who have read more than one of her books, is that it is not as good as Twice Lost and perhaps others, but not a clunker either. If I didn't have a copy of the novel already, I would be keen to get one of these.

Paul's books are hard to come by. This one will, I suppose, briefly, be effectively the only one of her books available, and will probably not last long.

 

[Extollager]

Here's perhaps a bit too much about Pulled Down, which is about to become the one and only novel by Phyllis Paul that is available in print.

Echo of Guilt (AKA Pulled Down) by Phyllis Paul (1964)

There's not much written these days about Phyllis Paul (1903-73). She published 12 novels over a 30+ year period. Most of them can be c...

z7hq.blogspot.com

 

[Extollager]

Here are detailed notes on Phyllis Paul's novel Twice Lost. The document contains spoilers. They will give some idea of how Miss Paul proceeds, which might be useful since her books are not easy to come by to purchase. A very quick glance at Worldcat suggests there might be around 45 copies of the novel in United States and maybe Canadian libraries, but I didn't look at each page of the Worldcat listings.

 

[Extollager]

Here is an article I've written on Phyllis Paul:

Guest Post: Phyllis Paul: A Few Glimpses of Her Meaning by Dale Nelson

Miss Paul maintains a pervasive sense of mystery, even though much in her books may be mysterious only in the conventional sense, that is, m...

wormwoodiana.blogspot.com

 

[Extollager]

Here is a summary of Phyllis Paul's 1964 novel Pulled Down, which I read in a Lancer paperback dated 1966. Pulled Down is supposed to be reprinted by Sundial Press, but I didn't enjoy it as much as several of the other novels by her that I have read, so I will not recommend the Sundial edition -- if it ever really does appear -- as a great opportunity to get acquainted with her work.

 

[Extollager]

My notes on A Cage for the Nightingale mention Richard Baxter. I don't know how widely known his Certainty of the Worlds of Spirits ever was, but his Saint's Everlasting Rest was very popular, at least in abridged editions. My understanding is that the second part thereof has some material relating to supernatural evidences. It may be that Phyllis Paul was acquainted with that book and that in it she found the material that suggested the passage in Cage.

View attachment 53059

Attached is a passage of about ten pages from an unabridged edition of The Saints' Everlasting Rest dealing with activities of devils. I suppose it likely that this is what Phyllis Paul had in mind in A Cage for the Nightingale. If we knew more about her life, we might have a notion of when and where she could have come across the book. Failing that, we may wonder if she didn't simply have some secondhand knowledge, possibly derived from some encyclopedia or recent historical book. The attached pages are from a copy of Baxter's book owned by Duke University and of which the digitized version is available at archive.org.

 

[Extollager]

Above is a reproduction of the title page of the Duke University library edition from which the scans were made. It sure would be interesting to know more about Miss Paul's reading....

 

[Extollager]

Maybe some Paul is going to come into print. The announcement below is interesting.

Phyllis Paul

But we'll have to wait and see.

 

[saulfan]

You may (or may not), be aware of this video by Mark Valentine, a contributor to TheTartarus Press:

The whole video is very interesting; there is specific mention of Phyllis Paul towards the end at: 22:10 with a collection of her works.

David

 

[BAYLOR]

Have never heard of her but , sounds quite interesting.

 

[BAYLOR]

Maybe some Paul is going to come into print. The announcement below is interesting.

Phyllis Paul

But we'll have to wait and see.

Found and old cope of woe her novels Echo of Guilt $199 dollars for it . Wow .

 

[Extollager]

Not one of her best, either, I believe (Echo of Guilt aka Pulled Down).

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I see on Amazon that Twice Lost will be reissued in paperback and Kindle formats this October. Perhaps other books by the author will come out in the months to come.

(I note that Amazon is selling a used copy of the hardback for $300.)

 

[Extollager]

Here are summary notes for Phyllis Paul's Constancy, an early novel I have just read. It is not a story of the supernatural or the preternatural, but largely a story about the sufferings of characters due to the insanity of one of them (and to lack of money) and the ways they deal with his plight and their own. It seems to me a success on its own terms but was not a story I much enjoyed reading; if I hadn't paid to get my hands on a Library of Congress copy and to photocopy it, I might not have finished it. Cavaliero gives it about half a sentence in his several pages on Phyllis Paul in The Supernatural in English Fiction.

 

[Extollager]

Here are notes on Pulled Down (Echo of Guilt), which I read in 2020.

 

[Extollager]

I thought I'd posted notes on Twice Lost here. They are here: