Greyladies, publishing, publisher, books, bookselling, bookseller, reprint, vintage, elder, scarlett, streatfeild, shirley neilson

ARTICLE originally published in Folly Magazine, Autumn 2008 :

The new publishing arm of The Old Children's Bookshelf

I was looking for a new project for the New Year; something nice and undemanding that I could potter at in my spare (?) time, an extra interest on top of the bookselling in the shop, catalogues, and bookfairs that are my main business.
   Three things combined to lead to Greyladies; the realisation that we are selling more and more adult books as customers complete their collections and are looking for something a bit different; my delighted discovery of Slightly Foxed, a brilliant quirky literary review, rather like an adult Folly, that I wished I'd thought of first, and my finding a copy (with lovely period dustwrapper) of The Encircled Heart by Josephine Elder, to read on the train from Edinburgh to London.
   Publishing! I thought. Publishing adult books by children's authors! My new project!
   Kirstie (the red-haired ex-children's librarian helping me in The Old Children's Bookshelf), was relieved. "It could be worse," she said. "I thought we'd have to write the books ourselves." (Now, there's a …. )
   If you have read Elder's Evelyn Finds Herself, currently available asone of Girls Gone By's 'Fun in the Fourth' series, you'll know what an excellent writer she is. Although most of her books are girls' school stories, she herself was a GP in Surrey and in The Encircled Heart she writes about what she truly knows - the joys and problems of being a young woman doctor in the 1930s and 1940s. This is it, I thought. The first book!
   Others disagreed. "You can't have as your launch title one that begins with gruesome childbirth!" said Vanessa of Fidra Books. Oh yes I can (and it's not really gruesome anyway) …   But I didn't, having at the eleventh hour located a copy of Elder's earlier book, Lady of Letters. This was maybe more like it. Clothes on, no screaming, academic minds, girls' school, even a young doctor thrown in. So we started with Lady of Letters, and The Encircled Heart is now scheduled for next February.    Were I a person to write in clichés, I would talk about the scarily precipitous learning curve here. But I'm not. So, thanks to generous advice from Vanessa Robertson of Fidra Books, and Joy Wotton, editor and general publishing guru, we were on our way. Rights and licence agreements, scanning, formatting, proof reading, cover design, colophon, introductions and printer's jargon were all successfully navigated, though I do admit "the next one'll be a doddle" was a phrase frequently forced through gritted teeth.
   Choosing a name took the longest. 'Canongate Books' was already taken (even though unlike us they're in the High Street and not the Canongate); 'Girls Gone By' would take some beating (Girls Grown Up? Girls Gone Grey?). We also rejected Old Bag Books, Candlemas Books (my birthday and the date of the train journey with the Josephine Elder), and Mighty Maidens (Mighty Maiden with a Mission at the women's university in Gilbert & Sullivan's Princess Ida? No?). And eventually Greyladies was born.
   Even then, the birth was not easy. Delivery was four days later than expected, and the printers sent us a pallet of poetry while Lady of Letters ended up in Devon. The correct delivery came only a day later, but by then I was on holiday in the remote north-west Highlands with no reliable mobile signal, Kirstie was in A&E in Edinburgh Royal Infirmary after a terrifying reaction to antihistamines, and there was no-one in the shop. Heroically she staggered back to her post after lunch, and luckily the carrier was held up by the traffic chaos surrounding the Royal Garden Party at Holyrood (thank you, Ma'am) so Greyladies books arrived safely just in time for tea.
   "The next one" was indeed a little easier, and Poppies for England, one of the light romances that Noel Streatfeild wrote under her 'Susan Scarlett' pseudonym, arrived a month later. We are delighted to have acquired the rights to the Susan Scarlett books, and hope to publish all twelve in due course.
   The third Greyladies title, due in September / October, will be Summer's Day by Mary Bell. This is a unique gem of a book, set in a girls' boarding school just after the Second World War. The characters, the teaching and domestic staff and their families, and three or four pupils, are beautifully drawn as their lives and outlooks intertwine through the term.

   Greyladies isn't quite the gentle little project I thought I was looking for, but it's the best excuse I've come up with yet to hunt for and read books all day long. I hope you'll like them too.

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