Bayonets of Bastard Sheen

Oh how I wish I could it! Couldn't somebody organize a reprint and make these works more available?

Your best hope at the moment is to get hold of a copy of "Thine in Storm and Calm" which contains excerpts from her works including some letters. It's also out of print but copies are a bit lighter on the pocket.

Actually, I already have it, plus the 3 novels and the biography, as well as an excerpt from Donald Dudley in an anthology of Irish humour, and a few poems. I'm a huge fan. However Bayonets is beyond my means. She's one of the few authors whose entire works I would want to read. Someone should re-publish her works for a new generation . . . otherwise I shall be forced to do it myself!

You never know, you may be lucky if you keep searching. I've managed to acquire both her poetry collections and the St Scandalbags volume at reasonable prices. But it would be even better if as you suggest the entire oeuvre were made available. A one or two-volume complete works?

Wow! May I ask how much you paid for them? You are a very wise and lucky man.

(Alfred - I have just realized that you are the man behind the whole oddbooks site - and I really must congratulate you on bringing AMR to a wider audience).

As to the question of how many volumes ought to be published, I'm not a huge fan of the concept of the enormous single volume. I have large volumes for each of Orwell (and that's just the novels, never mind the non-fiction) and Oscar Wilde but I find them too cumbersome and I tend not to read them. I would personally be in favour of individual imprints of each of the novels, one for the poems, one for the letters, and one or two for other miscellaneous unfinished and/or unpublished pieces (Donald Dudley, Six Months in Hell etc.). I envisage each volume would have contain copious notes, bibliographic information, and a an editor's note. Otherwise, I do quite like packages of three-books in one, and I understand that these can be quite attractive to the general public.

I got Fumes of Formation for about 70 pounds, in its unbound form. I've seen booksellers claim that all the unbound copies were destroyed, but this one certainly wasn't. Then I came across a listing for a poor copy, practically disbound, of Poems of Puncture for about 30 pounds. When I got this I decided it would be nice to have both copies rebound, which I did, inexpensively, in purple cloth.

St Scandalbags I just happened to see in a listing one day for £50. I wish I could find Bayonets for the same price!

Those are good prices. I once saw a first edition of . . . (Delina? Irene? I can't remember) in quite poor condition, for sale on-line from a US dealer for something like US$5. I ordered it, but the guy said he couldn't find it. I suspect he realized what he had and decided to hand on to it.

Yes, I have heard discussion of the unbound copies of Fumes. I think I recall Jack Loudan writing that some copies were destroyed but that 75 or so were preserved. But maybe I heard it somewhere else.

What's your favourite AMR poem?

I tutor high school literature students and use selections from AMR to illustrate devices such as alliteration, imagery and metaphor. Are you familiar with Theophile Marzial's classic poem 'A Tragedy'? I use it to illustrate onomatepaeia, repetition, ryhme, etc. These writers' enthusiastic embracing of literary devices provides very clear examples for learners. But my REAL agenda is, of course, to make these writers more widely known and appreciated.

"Westminster Abbey" and "A Little Belgian Orphan", I think.

I just noticed my mistake with the Donald Dudley / Six Months in Hell thing . . .

A copy of Bastards has just been listed for sale at http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=1020745717 for 275 pounds (US$580, or more importantly, NZ$735)

The same seller is also listing an interesting (though horrendously priced) copy of Delina Delaney: "presentation copy, inscribed "To G. Grey Esq With the Compliments of Amanda M. Ros Author. November 22nd 1910." With autograph verses, signed in full, on the blank recto of the dedication leaf, 10 lines in rhyming couplets, ending Your deep-seated passion, for me, in your letter, Is balm for my soul ? I ask nothing better." The price . . . 750 pounds (NZ$2000).

As my old man always used to say, stuff's (only) worth whatever someone's willing to pay for it. Personally, I cannot believe that anyone will pay $2000 for this.

Ouch. Pricy. I'd like both of those, though not for that sort of money. I don't own a first of Delina, only the 1935 reprint (though it does bear the bookplate of Barry Humphries). OK, not quite in the same class.

I'd love them both too . . . Bayonets more than any other book. I do have both editions of Delina, but only the US edition of Irene (which is a lovely edition too). And I recently bought a beautiful copy of St Scandalbags which I'm not allowed read, or even see again, till Christmas Day. Can't wait!

Incidentally, if anyone is wondering which edition of Delina Delaney to buy on-line, given the option, I'd steer away from the 1941 reprint, which is a particularly dull and uninspired edition. I haven't seen the 1936, but the 1935 is very attractive, as are the first eds (at least the one I've seen - there are 4 distinct variations described in O Rare Amanda).