An Attempted Bibliography of the Works of Barbara Livesey

Stephen George Wallis
Eden Book Society

Although unpublished by Eden outside of the famed anthology Best Short Stories: 1952, the work of Barbara Livesey forms a part of The Eden Book Society's story. The first yellow envelope to show Livesey's return address in Norwich is postmarked December 1949; a  cover letter accompanying the manuscript within is signed "M.G.W." Further correspondence in the record is signed with the same initials and continues through the autumn of 1955, concluding in the manner detailed herein. Livesey's writing career survived the end of her dealings with Eden by four years, through July of 1959, after which the trail goes cold.

The Eden Book Society is a 'literary hoax' perpetuated by the publisher Dead Ink Books.  The idea being that the 'Eden Family' published a series of subscription only horror novelettes each year from 1919 until 2006.  To perpetrate their hoax Dead Ink have recruited a selection of pseudonymous authors - Chikodili Emelumadu, Grady Hendrix, Alison Rumfitt, Alex Pheby, Nina Allan, John Darnielle, Rowan Hisayo Buchanan & Kylie Whitehead - for this, the '1993 Collection'.

The first of the eight I chose from the stack - chosen purely because it had the most intriguing title - tells of the writings of Barbara Livesey who had contributed to Eden Book Society in the 1950s and is pieced together here as a scrapbook of her published work and various ephemera.  Lindsey's writing is eclectic and seemingly unfocussed - short stories, tourist pamphlets, extracts from a memoir - but collected together in the bibliography one begins to see evidence of an ongoing warning hidden in her work that becomes increasingly specific over time.

It makes for a fascinating and delicately plotted read that teases out it's subtle subtext and made for an auspicious start for my journey through these Eden Books.

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