Hello and welcome to one of our backlisted reruns. The episode you're about to listen to was recorded seven years ago. And it's on the novel Human Voices by Penelope Fitzgerald, a writer who has become central to backlisted over the years. The guests are the publisher George Morley, who was taught by Penelope Fitzgerald.

Spoiler!

Yeah, true, spoiler.

And Lucy Skolls, who is now also a publisher, the most amazing collection of books being brought

back into print at McNally Editions.

One of the things that you'll discover is, to me at least, the most horrific

revelation about any author's practice in the whole of the 10 years of backlisted.

Listen out for the gasp of everybody in the room.

Well, I, hi, it's Andy. I remember this episode with great fondness, for the simple reason that it's about Penelope Fitzgerald,

who I hadn't read before we started work on Backlisted and has become one of my favorite authors, bar none.

Absolutely.

I've now read everything she wrote pretty much at least a couple of times.

And the marvellous biography.

And the marvellous biography.

Human Voices is, I think, it's a funny thing to say, isn't it?

It's one of the lighter ones.

And yet at the same time, it isn't very light.

But it perhaps lacks the depth of field that she reached by the time she got to her last novel, The Blue Flower.

Those last three magnificent historical novels are incredible, aren't they?

Nevertheless, Human Voices was a wonderful book when it was published, a wonderful book seven years ago.

And I'm certain remains a wonderful book in 2026.

Yeah, and if you're a big fan of Penelope Fitzgerald, you can hear a special bonus episode that we recorded this week on another one of her books offshore. In fact,

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