Certainly Johnson deserves better by today's publishers. It
would be nice to see an omnibus volume or three to five of
his works as all seem to be out of print. From the reading I
have done, he is a writer who should be available for the
reasons you cite and more. His work is certainly superior to
some that are published today.
I have no idea of how to urge a publisher to do such a
project. Perhaps others here do. While rights would have to
be negotiated, it seems easy enough to get the rights to
Sue's fine article, the rights to three or more of his books
(all are short) and go from there. Mysterious Press?
Regards, Willow
----- Original Message -----
From: Richard Moore
To:
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2007 3:10 PM
Subject: RARA-AVIS: Re: E. Richard Johnson
I second the referenced link
(
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/monkshould/ERJohnson.html)to
an
excellent piece on E Richard Johnson by Sue
Feder. It is really a fine
piece of research and summary of Johnson's life
and career.
If there is a note of surprise in this it is
because I knew Sue Feder
for years and had no idea of her interest in such
a hardboiled writer,
much less her correspondence with him. She was
known for her
promotions of and writings about historical
mysteries--as witness the
Ellis Peters collection THE TRINITY CAT published
by Crippen & Landru,
which Sue co-edited. I would have loved to have
talked to her about
Johnson, who I learned from her article was
called Emil by his friends
but by the time I read her piece she was dead
from cancer at a too
early age.
Johnson's best work is powerful stuff indeed
reflecting his intimate
knowledge of a hard life of crime, which he
apparently couldn't escape
even after he made it with a good publisher and
won a parole.
Richard Moore
--- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "wolansky2006"
<wolansky2006@...>
wrote:
>
> I tend to browse in local thrifts, one of the few
options for books up
> here in the north. I recently came across a novel
by E. Richard
> Johnson . MONGO'S BACK IN TOWN turns out to be his
second novel. The
> first, SILVER STREET won the EDGAR
AWARD.
>
> With some digging, I came acorss one good reerence
for Johnson:
>
>
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/monkshould/ERJohnson.html
>
> There is also an inteview on a French noir
site.
>
> After some further digging, I managed to locate
copies of all fo his
> work, including a non-fiction survival book. Too
bad he is not better
> known. Granted, not all the novels are good. One is
pretty bad but
> the rest do have much to recommend them.
>
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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