JACK TREVOR STORY 1917

A TRIBUTE & RESOURCE SITE

January 2010 update New (ish) DVD releases - see NEWS (below) Several new entries in the Short Stories / Articles section (Radio Times, Knave, John Bull, The Listener etc.)
Greetings site visitor. Whether you are scholar, avid reader or casual browser, welcome to the world's third most popular Jack Trevor Story site. I hope you enjoy your time here and do come again! A few brave souls amongst you have stuck their heads above the parapet and written to reminisce about their acquaintance with JTS and/or his work. One day soon I will add more of these notes to the web site. (I reserve the right to define "soon" as I please, or according to the vagaries of fate, whichever is the later.) As ever, I am also very keen to hear of any missing texts of Jack's, not so far listed on this site. In particular I know there must be c. 1 zillion short stories scattered about the world, possibly in your very own files'n'piles. Do dig 'em out & let me know. Send scans or photocopies. Tear pages out of valuable first editions. Whatever it takes. Please note new e-mail address. Even in this obscure backwater of England (must be a good 10 miles from Charing Cross) BT have managed to boost my broadband speed from Pipex/Talk Talk's derisory 1.8 Mb to a space-age 3.04. As a result I am now here: guy.lawley@btinternet.com Looking forward to hearing from you. Alternatively... I hope you find what you are looking for here. Guy Lawley, London, England, January 2013
Navigation: there are blue links, plus:
Click on grey buttons to link to another part of this site
Red buttons for exciting journeys elsewhere

Des Gershon's photos of Jack are back on the site, I'm glad to say >>
NEWS January 2010
THREE JTS-SCRIPTED FILMS NOW ON DVD >>
NEWS September 2009
HOWARD WALDROP WINS THE JTS MEMORIAL CUP >>
HITLER NEEDS YOU BACK IN PRINT >>

Also: Read the news archive here

Getting around the Jack Trevor Story site
	Click on grey buttons to link to another part of this site
	Click on red buttons to go to a linked resource somewhere else on the web - use the back button on your browser to return to this site
There are also navigation bars on all pages, and some other links like this
INDEX OF MAIN PAGES
	Biography & Memoirs - obituaries; pieces by Story, Moorcock and others
	Books, Films etc - top page for bibliography, filmography, Sexton Blake etc.
	Texts - some short stories, Shabby Weddings; Guardian & Punch articles
	Picture Gallery - some photographs of the great man
	Links & Contacts - my own details and some useful ones

INTRODUCTION

"There is a sadness which grows from the seeds of remembered happiness; there is a weariness which springs unrequested from the remembered fountains of youth; there is a nostalgia conjured from faraway places and gone people and moments which have long since ticked into the infinite fog."

— from Danger's Child (Sexton Blake Library no. 487) 1961

Jack Trevor Story is probably best known for two of his books which were filmed -- The Trouble With Harry (directed by Alfred Hitchcock, 1955) and Live Now, Pay Later (1962) -- or for his Saturday column in the Guardian newspaper in the 1970s. He also wrote several other fine books, many film scripts, radio plays, episodes of TV drama series and sitcoms, uncountable short stories and a distinguished run of crime novellas for the Sexton Blake Library.

Story was a versatile writer who spanned the supposed divide between pulp entertainment and literary endeavour, as well as the one between the conservative humour magazine Punch and the radical journal of speculative fiction New Worlds. He wrote what he knew, and he lived on the edge of the "affluent society" of post-war England and the "swinging London" of the 1960s and 70s. In a feelgood era which celebrated upward mobility, he chronicled the lives of those who didn't make the grade. Story didn't live a comfortable life and his books aren't always comfortable reading.

His writing has been abhorred by some, but also passionately loved by many. His admirers have included Stephen Fry, Peter Sellers, Alan Moore, George Melly and Michael Moorcock, who is now his literary executor.

Despite this, his books, even those with films to boost them, were never more than modestly successful, his short stories have never been collected and his work is all out of print . (Update September 2009: with the exception of a new Print-On-Demand edition of Hitler Needs You >> .)The available information on the web to date is scattered and far from comprehensive.

This site attempts to bring together some of the existing internet resources about Story's work and add to them. If you have comments, corrections or material to contribute, I hope you will contact me, and the site will improve and grow.

I also hope some viewers of this site will find new enjoyment in reading Story's work, or rediscover old pleasures. Perhaps too new contacts will be made amongst a virtual community who share an interest in this unique writer.

Guy Lawley, London, England. Original page date: August 2001

e-mail: guy.lawley@btinternet.com

The author thanks David Redd, Dave Britton/all at Savoy Books, John Davey, Des Gershon, Steve Holland, Michael Moorcock, Roger Stanger, Mark Hodder, and Nick & Ann-Marie Osmond for their help in producing this site.

Mark Hodder's new Sexton Blake pages are now open: >> http://www.sextonblake.co.uk/index.html

Best viewed at 1024 X 768. Viewing in Netscape Navigator, and with some local settings of Internet Explorer, may introduce annoying anomalies in the layout of some pages. My current level of "mastery" of FrontPage software doesn't allow me to correct for this... sorry!