The afterlife of books and writers is an enthralling subject full of strange vicissitudes and unintended consequences, as even the most cursory reflection on the life and reputation of Shakespeare suggests. It's also a story of forgotten bestsellers, fashionable names swept into oblivion and overlooked figures growing in posthumous stature. The underexplored fact of literary life is that most books fail, in at least two ways. First, they do not live up to their authors' high expectations. Writers who are honest concede that most typescripts represent the wreck of a grander, just partially fulfilled idea. Second, the majority of books fall stillborn from the press, never living up to their authors' hopes for recognition or dreams of a large, admiring audience. So those bestseller lists and crowded festival appearances create a misleading impression of the true circumstances of literary life. For every book that tickles public taste, captures the zeitgeist and hits the jackpot, there are thousands that do not appeal to contemporary readers, fail to find a sufficient audience and almost disappear.
