She asked, wistfully

The most melancholy question I was asked at the Henley Literary Festival came from a dedicated fan ... 'while you were searching through Margery Allingham's papers, did you make any discoveries - a new Campion novel, perchance, a batch of unpublished short stories, even an unrecorded radio script ...?' Oh how I sympathised! But I had to say no. I tried to gain some credit for the discovery of The Darings of the Red Rose, a series of light weight tales written in imitation of some of Herbert and Em's 'Phinella Martin' stories published by Aunt Maud in Womans Weekly from 1917, but the questioner had already read them. The trouble with the Allinghams was, if a story was saleable, it got sold. Just imagine leaving it until 2004 before 'discovering' 70 writer's notebooks. Such is the unworldliness of the Christie estate (really??) I haven't yet read John Curran's analysis of Agatha Christie's secret notebooks but I feel sure it would be worth it - if I were a properly knowledgeable Christie fan. Am I? I have just read Elena Santangelo's analysis of Christie's short stories - all 160 of them. Loved Santangelo's title Dame Agatha's Shorts and agreed with her suggestion that removing the 'trees' of the novels allows light to fall on the flowers - the short stories. I think that's true of Allingham as well - when one is engrossed by the novels, the short stories may seem too insubstantial to satisfy. Read separately - and not gobbled - they are idiosyncratic, intriguing and a few very good indeed. I recommend a slow trip on the Allingham Minibus with plenty of stops to admire the view.

Update on Sunday, January 17, 2010 at 5:34PM by Golden Duck

And what an idiot I was - CHEAPJACK is the closest we'll get to an undiscovered -- or at least, unacknowledged Allingham. Her fingerprints are all over it!