The Most Criminally Overlooked or Underrated Writers Ever List

[Metopheles]

No, no, no.. Shakespeare and Marlowe being the same person is the theory. Shakespeare only existed after Marlowe died. Beforehand there was no Shakespeare. The pictures also look convincing ;) Same face

[Cry_Havoc]

Boring or irritating, those are the words you should be looking for.

Unique does not equal underrated. And if that is his only book you think is underread he is probably not underrated.

Neither of these threads made if very far, so maybe it is underread?

House of leaves 1

House of Leaves 2

Bah, oh well I enjoyed it.

[The Killer Snark]

Metopheles - He would have had to have gone some way into faking his own death, though. Their mutual homosexuality or bisexuality, which is transparent, is the more credible link to me, from a writerly perspective, but that would be a bit like, say, three hundred years from now, people saying Ginsberg may have been Hart Crane, though you'd need a lack of photos of either author to accomplish that feat, and to forget Crane was the better poet. The main point of contention with the Marlowe theory is that, by all accounts, Kit was a hard-drinking, antagonistic libertine who made a lot of enemies. Bill Shakes was an almost boringly obsequious social chameleon who managed to get as far as he did, not purely from his talent, but from how gifted he was at making all the right kind of friends in all the right kind of places. In fact, the fact he was so conformistly normative is surely the reason so little biographically is known of the man. Could Kit have avoided the people out to get him by having changed himself that much?

[Clueless Northman]

elites thought that a middle class guy lacking in formal education couldn't have come up with this stuff. But I'd have thought we'd have moved on from this classist nonsense in this day and age. Clearly not.

Nowadays, I think it's more all the people who think that any "official version" of anything is a pack of lies, because, well, The Man / the government / the elite wants to put us down and manipulates us.

[Datepalm]

I know that the elite puts us down and manipulate us, and I'm pretty sure Shakespeare was Shakespeare. Calm down.

[sologdin]

Shakespeare only existed after Marlowe died.

close, but there's some overlap. HVI, titus, CoE, some of the verse, all likely written before marlowe died.

[Larry of the Lawn]

Cynthia Voight and Patricia Wrede

[Ormond]

Metopheles - He would have had to have gone some way into faking his own death, though. Their mutual homosexuality or bisexuality, which is transparent, is the more credible link to me, from a writerly perspective, but that would be a bit like, say, three hundred years from now, people saying Ginsberg may have been Hart Crane, though you'd need a lack of photos of either author to accomplish that feat, and to forget Crane was the better poet. The main point of contention with the Marlowe theory is that, by all accounts, Kit was a hard-drinking, antagonistic libertine who made a lot of enemies. Bill Shakes was an almost boringly obsequioius social chameleon who managed to get as far as he did, not purely from his talent, but from how gifted he was at making all the right kind of friends in all the right kind of places. In fact, the fact he was so conformistly normative is surely the reason so little biographically is known of the man. Could Kit have avoided the people out to get him by having changed himself that much?

Sorry if this promotes thread drift -- but although I am definitely NOT someone who agrees with any of the theories that someone other than Shakespeare wrote the plays, my understanding is that those who do really do not believe that Christopher Marlowe or any of the other candidates took over the LIFE of the guy from Stratford on Avon, but that they secretly wrote the plays and got the Stratford guy to publish them under his name. I believe most of those who subscribe to a Marlowe theory think Marlowe fled to continental Europe after his supposed murder and then sent the plays back to Shakespeare to be published. I don't find that credible, but it's a very different theory than thinking the guy who died in Stratford was Marlowe in disguise.

P.S. Sorry, I wrote the above before I read Metopheles' #81 above post. All I have to say is that the theory that Marlowe and Shakespeare were actually the same person is just ridiculous compared to the idea in my previous paragraph, which I still think is the much more common one among those who think Marlowe wrote Shakespeare's plays. In addition to Marlowe's hard-drinking behavior, most modern critics believe he was gay, which also doesn't fit the older Stratford guy very well.

[Ser Pounce a Lot]

William Carlos Williams is the best poet of the 20th century.

All of the other poets that you mentioned other than Pound (especially Eliot) set poetry back 20 years.

I absolutely love the Beat Generation writers, and while Ginsberg is my favourite poet, I absolutely agree that Williams never gets the credit he is due.

It can be difficult to name an auhor underrated (especially on a forum like this) because I think a lot of authors who might not be incredibly well known, tend to have cult followings.

But in my personal opinion, Don De Lillo is one example of someone I believe should be more widely read, as is John Fowles (both are academically acclaimed, but sadly unknown to the mass populous)

[Metopheles]

Final comment on the marlovian theory : I actually don't care. Definitely Marlowe wrote way better stories that became the foundation to Goethe's Faust and did not, like Shakespeare copy all his famous plays from others (Pyramus et Thisbe). And: You all forget one major point in the theory, which is Marlowe's part-time job . .

Who cares if he was gay ? Many of the writers of this period are gay.

[Ormond]

Final comment on the marlovian theory : I actually don't care. Definitely Marlowe wrote way better stories that became the foundation to Goethe's Faust and did not, like Shakespeare copy all his famous plays from others (Pyramus et Thisbe). And: You all forget one major point in the theory, which is Marlowe's part-time job . .

Who cares if he was gay ? Many of the writers of this period are gay.

I think it's wonderful Marlowe was gay. I just don't think there is any good evidence Shakespeare was. so that's another discrepancy between what the two men are like which means the "they are the same person" theory is less likely.

[Metopheles]

I think it's wonderful Marlowe was gay. I just don't think there is any good evidence Shakespeare was. so that's another discrepancy between what the two men are like which means the "they are the same person" theory is less likely.

Well give that one last thought : Marlowe did not die just because he ate something wrong. He was accused of being an atheist (ha, good old times ;D) and probably other evil things like homosexuality. So if the dear queen somehow smuggles him to be alive, best not do the same things again, or not so obvious.

But let's not flood that thread with these two guys, who might've been one guy ;)

[Datepalm]

Mod: want to drag it out into it's own thread, see if it will survive the light of day?

[wolverine]

Bah, oh well I enjoyed it.

There was definitely some cool stuff there, but I thought the execution was poor. I was also super annoyed with the gimmicky structure and main character.

[The Killer Snark]

Righty, off of the Bill and Kit track, I can recommend an absolute forgotten cracker. It's the seminal genetically created supersoldier, military apocalypse novel, The Death Guard, by one hit wonder Philip George Chadwick. Chadwick was a speculative and literary genius whose novel's prophetic quality was unfortunately drowned out by appearing in print in conjunction with the start of the Second World War. He was essentially a Wellsian, except that he was actually a good writer who was gifted at central characterisation, and the subtlety and depth of his conjectures of rural apocalypse mark him more as a precursor to Wyndham, except that The Death Guard is an even better novel than The Day of the Triffids. It is that good. It was never popular in the first place, so it's somewhat odd of me to use the word 'forgotten'. It remains a staple of sci-fi cultdom only among the writers who were influenced by it but have failed to make its reputation better known. It's somewhat slow-paced by modern standards, but that allows not for endless overwriting or info-dump, but is actually one of the book's virtues, because it gives the writer a chance to throw more characterisation and detail in. The only thing that you'll unfortunately have to contend with is Chadwick's obvious appalling racism, which is rancorous even by the standards of Lovecraft and RE Howard, but it's a fairly small price to pay, because The Death Guard deserves to be a mass-recognised classic. You'll have a hard time tracking it down, though, as it's currently out of print. Wiki it in order to find details out I've not given regarding its central premise and its plot.

[Ormond]

A lot of overlooked authors would be among those who have only published one book.

Two women fantasy authors I can think of off the top of my head who fit that are Pauline Alama and Lori Martin,

I really liked Alama's The Eye of Night when I read it a few years ago, I think it's a shame she hasn't published any more novels.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Eye-Night-Pauline-Alama/dp/0553584634

Lori Martin originally published The Darkling Hills in 1986, ten years before A Game of Thrones. I'm sure LM is not related to GRRM, but what they have in common besides a surname is a willingness to kill off major characters. In fact, LM's first book goes way further than GRRM's-- although her writing is not as "gritty" as GRRM's, by the end of her book almost all the major adult characters have been killed and two newborn infants are left for the sequel.

Evidently that was too bleak an ending for readers in 1986. Her sequel was never published in the USA, although her German publishers translated it and it was published in Germany. The good news is that The Darkling Hills was finally republished last September. The bad news is that the sequel Calling Up The Fire was supposed to finally be availabe in English in December but doesn't seem to be available yet. I hope this is just a small delay and not another failure by an American publisher to carry through for her, because I would dearly love to be able to read it.

https://www.facebook.com/TheDarklingHills

[Jiriki]

Peake's Gormenghast series always strikes me as quite underappreciated. It's rare for me to find anyone who has read and enjoyed the series (and if they have, they only liked the first two, and thought the other books were garbage).

During Peake's lifetime, his wasn't a highly successful writer. In fact, Gormenghast and Titus Alone were scorned in critical circles, and both books were remaindered after failing to sell many copies. And Peake himself was unable to complete his series. Not that there was much interest in another book that wouldn't sell well, anyway.

And yet, Peake was a major influence on several highly successful authors in the genre.

[peterbound]

Peake's Gormenghast series always strikes me as quite underappreciated. It's rare for me to find anyone who has read and enjoyed the series (and if they have, they only liked the first two, and thought the other books were garbage).

During Peake's lifetime, his wasn't a highly successful writer. In fact, Gormenghast and Titus Alone were scorned in critical circles, and both books were remaindered after failing to sell many copies. And Peake himself was unable to complete his series. Not that there was much interest in another book that wouldn't sell well, anyway.

And yet, Peake was a major influence on several highly successful authors in the genre.

Didn't the BBC make a miniseries about the books? Can't really say something receiving that type of treatment is overlooked.

[Datepalm]

They did, and I even remember it being kind of ok. (And having a crush on Steerpike. What, it was Jonathan Rhys Meyers in 2000. That works when you're 13.)

[peterbound]

Peake's Gormenghast series always strikes me as quite underappreciated. It's rare for me to find anyone who has read and enjoyed the series (and if they have, they only liked the first two, and thought the other books were garbage).

During Peake's lifetime, his wasn't a highly successful writer. In fact, Gormenghast and Titus Alone were scorned in critical circles, and both books were remaindered after failing to sell many copies. And Peake himself was unable to complete his series. Not that there was much interest in another book that wouldn't sell well, anyway.

And yet, Peake was a major influence on several highly successful authors in the genre.

Can you source this at all? All the information i'm finding speaks to the contrary. He had a BBC production of Titus Groan before he'd even finished Titus Alone, and most critics at the time gave pretty favorable reviews of his books.

He didn't finish the books due to Parkinson's and death, not so much low sales.

Per his website:

• 1950 - Gormenghast is published to very good reviews.

• 1951 - Wins the Heinemann Prize for Literature for Gormenghast and The Glassblowers and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

• 1956 - Titus Groan adapted for BBC radio