Thanks for bringing this to attention, Simon.

“The overall tone of some passages of Lord Horror is such that reproducing quotations in a family newspaper is simply not an option. As I recently explained to Britton, my own preference, if I ever find the copy that is festering somewhere on my shelves, would be to incinerate it rather than sell it for the £300 that the edition now fetches.”

For Tim’s benefit, I hope you don’t mind me posting the following passage from your essay, which helps shed some light on all this:

“Aesthetic advantages are balanced by disadvantages of a mostly practical nature. It’s very expensive to print a book. A romance publisher can run off half a million paperbacks, but an individual is going to be strapped to pay for a thousand. And once you’ve printed it, you have to store it, market it, sell it, fulfill orders, shlep to the post office, keep records, fill out tax forms — all when you really should be doing what a writer is supposed to do: write. And when you add to the disadvantages the sort of legal harassment that Savoy has suffered, it’s amazing that Britton and Butterworth have persevered at all.

As a result of these practical difficulties, Lord Horror is not as well known as he should be. Savoy has done relatively small print runs of the books. No publisher has had the vision or, more likely, the courage to purchase the rights to publish them in America. You can buy Motherfuckers at Amazon, but the two other novels are rare and expensive. The comics have also become collectibles. The smart young people who would most enjoy the works probably can’t afford them, or don’t know enough about them to sell an old iPod and turn the funds into a copy of the Reverbstorm comic.

It is time for that to change. This is a call for action. If you’re interested in transgressive literature, buy a copy of Motherfuckers before Amazon sells out. Watch eBay for Lord Horror — a copy recently sold for about $150 — and Baptised in the Blood of Millions. If your interests extend to comics and graphic novels, buy the various Lord Horror comics. If you’re into music, try the Savoy Wars CD. Better yet, if you’re a publisher or if you want to be the next Barney Rossett (the legendary founder of Grove Press, publisher of Henry Miller, Samuel Beckett, William Burroughs, et al), contact Savoy to inquire about American rights to the books. Publish them all in a nicely designed line of paperbacks, so that they look as well as they deserve but aren’t too expensive for the college set.”

Keith Seward, Horror Panegyric.

It’s also worth bearing in mind that Lord Horror has caused Savoy no end of legal troubles. Probably it would be safe for them to reprint it. But if you, like David Britton, had served two terms in jail for charges of obscenity, how anxious would you be to reprint the book? It’s to his enormous credit that he keeps working at all, let alone keeps writing such outré books as he does.

Meanwhile if an entrepreneurial publisher outside England wanted to reprint Lord Horror, Savoy would probably listen to offers. Horror Panegyric makes the case that the books are ripe for picking by an American publisher in particular. Graphic books are all the rage here. Somebody should swoop in and offer Savoy a deal for the novels plus all the comics they’ve put out.

It’s interesting that the original Lord Horror novel has never been republished. Savoy says: “In answer to frequent queries, Savoy currently has no plans to reprint the book.” Yet it’s available in a Czech translation and as a talking book.