Had a trip to a bookshop today (for the record it was the Waterstones in Deansgate, I had Christmas vouchers to dispose of humanely...). While I was browsing for possible buys, I saw a nice looking new edition of Gormenghast for sale. I would have ignored it (we own two copies from when we merged our book collections post moving in together) but something on the cover caught my eye. It was a sticker reading 'signed by the author'.
I boggled at this. As far as I knew, Mervyn Peake was dead. indeed a quick check on Wikipedia revealed a death date in 1968. This book was new, could not possibly have been more than a few years old. I looked inside, and there was indeed a signature. It was a 'proper' felt tip pen signature too - not a printed one which I might have expected but would have considered a con. Now, other than the apparent impossibility of him being able to sign this particular book (I might have accepted a book plate signed and stuck in...) I had no way of knowing if this was indeed Peake's signature or not...
So, any thoughts on this mystery? Either fraud on behalf of Waterstones, someone else's signature (maybe someone who wrote the foreward, I could not tell the name from the scribble...) which is still slightly dishonest or someone out there is using necromancy to channel the ghosts of dead writers...
Any thoughts? It certainly weirded me out...
I boggled at this. As far as I knew, Mervyn Peake was dead. indeed a quick check on Wikipedia revealed a death date in 1968. This book was new, could not possibly have been more than a few years old. I looked inside, and there was indeed a signature. It was a 'proper' felt tip pen signature too - not a printed one which I might have expected but would have considered a con. Now, other than the apparent impossibility of him being able to sign this particular book (I might have accepted a book plate signed and stuck in...) I had no way of knowing if this was indeed Peake's signature or not...
So, any thoughts on this mystery? Either fraud on behalf of Waterstones, someone else's signature (maybe someone who wrote the foreward, I could not tell the name from the scribble...) which is still slightly dishonest or someone out there is using necromancy to channel the ghosts of dead writers...
Any thoughts? It certainly weirded me out...
