A Novel Industry

Literary adaptation is a perennial favourite of the film and TV industries. Think Jane Austen, or Charles Dickens. Well, what happens when the worlds of film and television become the writer's muse? We found out in the BFI Library's first display of 2010.

To tie in with February's Researcher's Tales event with author of Their Finest Hour and A Half, Lissa Evans, we raided the rarely accessed collection of 300 or so film related novels hidden in our basement book stacks.

This is an untapped and entertaining resource that introduces us to a bevy of bizarre and beautiful characters living, loving and bumping each other off in a plethora of exotic and some altogether more mundane locations.

Our selection of titles on display (including those listed below) spaned all decades and featured a range of writing talent, from established authors to screenwriters, journalists, filmmakers and even the players themselves.

• Queer People, by Carroll and Garrett Graham (New York: Vanguard Press, 1930)
• Merton of the movies, by Harry Leon Wilson (London: Cape, 1936)
• Camera!, by Joan Morgan (London: Chapman & Hall, 1940)
• The Magic Lantern, by Robert Carson (London: Robert Hale, 1954)
• No Mother to Guide Her, by Anita Loos (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961)
• Hollywood and LeVine, by Andrew Bergman (London: Hutchinson, 1976)
• Perdido, by Jill Robinson (London: Hutchinson, 1978)
• Moviola, by Garson Kanin (London: Macmillan, 1980)
• Hollywood Wives, by Jackie Collins (London: Collins, 1983)
• Murder on Location, by George Kennedy (New York: Avon Books, 1983)
• Queenie, by Michael Korda (London: Collins, 1985)
• Suspects, by David Thomson (London: Secker & Warburg, 1985)
• The Alfred Hitchcock Murder Case, by George Baxt (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1986)
• The Golden Age of Censorship: a novel, by Paul Hoffman (London: Black Swan, 2007)

Each book was either reviewed by a member of BFI staff, or in these two publications, also on display.

• The Hollywood novel and other novels about film, 1912-1982: an annotated bibliography, by Nancy Brooker-Bowers (New York; London: Garland, 1985)
• The Hollywood novel: a critical guide to over 1200 works, by Anthony Slide (Jefferson, NC; London: McFarland, 1995)

Are we missing any literary gems? Feel free to contact us with your own recommendations and reviews.

Cover image permission granted by the publishers, Transworld