Rare Book Monthly

Articles - April - 2025 Issue

Obscure Author Gets Her Moment in the Sun...Maybe

Mariana Villa-Gilbert.

Mariana Villa-Gilbert.

Do you know Mariana Soledad Magdalena Villa-Gilbert? Most likely not. She was an author and her publisher thought enough of her to publish 7 books, six novels and one collection of her short stories. All but the short stories were published in the 1960s to early 1970s. She continued writing for many more years but her later work is unpublished. Apparently her best-known book is A Jingle Jangle Song, published in 1968. Best known but it's still doubtful you know it. Still, many people dream of being authors but most never get anything in print. Mariana Villa-Gilbert did seven times. That is quite an accomplishment, even if none of her books ever made it to a reprint.

 

She mostly wrote on “queer” themes. There wasn't a big audience for those in her day. This was the 1960s and 1970s. Perhaps she would have gained more acceptance writing today. I have not read any of her works so I cannot be a judge, but from what I have seen online, she was an okay to good writer, not great but good. It wasn't quite up to where you develop a following and reputation, but few writers do.

 

The Sun in Horus, her short story collection and last published work, came out in 1986, 13 years after her last novel. She continued writing for many more years but her submissions did not find a publisher. She wrote an autobiography, Burned by the Sun, but it is unpublished. She and her sister Gerda, with whom she was very close, for years worked at British retailer WH Smith, mostly in the musical records department. The sisters grew up under difficult conditions which explains their closeness. They depended on each other. They shared a home until Gerda died, almost two decades before Mariana. We don't know much about Mariana's post-writing life as she was not in the public eye. She died in 2023 at the age of 86.

 

Villa-Gilbert's papers were inherited by playwright and screenwriter Dr. Christopher Adams. The connection may be that Adams has a Ph.D. in mid-twentieth century queer publishing history. He is someone one who would be familiar with Villa-Gilbert's writing. This brings us to the event that brought Villa-Gilbert back into the public eye after all these years. Adams contributed her papers to the Special Collections of the University of Exeter. They include drafts and typescripts of her published works along with several unpublished ones. There is also a book of poetry and an unpublished novel by her sister, Gerda Villa-Gilbert.

 

Dr D-M Withers, Lecturer in Publishing in the Department of English and Creative Writing at Exeter and Director of Lurid Editions commented on the gift, “Having the papers here at Exeter, alongside other distinguished archives, will help to elevate Villa-Gilbert in the common literary imagination. It's an exciting moment to re-energise her legacy, to, indeed, give her a legacy. And crucially, it means her work will be accessible again, opening the possibility that it might be published again in the future.” Lurid Editions plans to publish A Jingle Jangle Song next year. It will be Villa Gilbert's first second edition. Perhaps if it is well-received, we will see more her works republished, and even some of her unpublished works make it to print. Much will depend on how a generation 50 or more years removed from their first publishing reacts to her work. Maybe we will find that she simply was ahead of her time.

 

Rare Book Monthly

  • Freeman’s | HindmanWestern Manuscripts and MiniaturesJuly 8, 2025 Freeman’s | HindmanWestern Manuscripts and MiniaturesJuly 8, 2025
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    Western Manuscripts and Miniatures
    July 8, 2025
    Freeman’s | Hindman
    Western Manuscripts and Miniatures
    July 8, 2025
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. FRANCESCO PETRARCH (b. Arezzo, 20 July 1304; d. Arqua Petrarca, 19 July 1374). $20,000-30,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF THE MASTER OF THE VITAE IMPERATORUM (active Milan, 1431-1459). $15,000-20,000.
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    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. Previously unknown illumination from one of the most renowned Gothic Choir Book sets of the Middle Ages. $6,000-8,000.
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    17th July 2025
    Forum, July 17: Lucianus Samosatensis. Dialogoi, editio princeps, second issue, Florence, Laurentius Francisci de Alopa, 1496. £10,000 to £15,000.
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    Forum, July 17: Henry VII (King) & Philip the Fair (Duke of Burgundy). [Intercursus Magnus], [Commercial and Political Treaty between Henry VII and Philip Duke of Burgundy], manuscript copy in Latin, original vellum, 1499. £8,000 to £12,000.
    Forum, July 17: Bible, English. The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New, Robert Barker, 1613. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum, July 17: Bond (Michael). A Bear Called Paddington, first edition, signed presentation inscription from the author, 1958. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    17th July 2025
    Forum, July 17: Yeats (William Butler). The Secret Rose, first edition, with extensive autograph corrections, additions and amendments by the author for a new edition, 1897. £6,000 to £8,000.
    Forum, July 17: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, bound in dark green morocco elaborately tooled in gilt and with 3 watercolours to fore-edge, by Fazakerley of Liverpool, 1841. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum, July 17: Miró (Juan), Wassily Kandinsky, John Buckland-Wright, Stanley William Hayter and others.- Spender (Stephen). Fraternity, one of 101 copies, with signed engravings by 9 artists. £6,000 to £8,000.
    Forum, July 17: Sowerby (George Brettingham). Album comprising 22 leaves of original watercolour drawings of fossil remains of Cheltenham and Vicinity, [c.1840]. £6,000 to £8,000.
    Forum, July 17: Mathematics.- Blue paper copy.- Euclid. De gli Elementi, Urbino, Appresso Domenico Frisolino, 1575. £12,000 to £18,000.
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    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Book of Hours by the Masters of Otto van Moerdrecht, Use of Sarum, in Latin, Southern Netherlands (Bruges), c.1450. £20,000 to £30,000.
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    Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern
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    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Ian Fleming. A collection of James Bond first editions, 8 volumes in all. £8,000 to £12,000.
    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, 1997, first edition, hardback issue. £50,000 to £70,000.
    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: J.R.R. Tolkien. Autograph letter signed, to Amy Ronald, on Pauline Baynes's map of Middle Earth, 1970. £7,000 to £10,000.
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    July 23, 2025
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    July 23, 2025
    DOYLE, July 23: WALL, BERNHARDT. Greenwich Village. Types, Tenements & Temples. Estimate $300-500
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    DOYLE, July 23: [AUTOGRAPH - US PRESIDENT]FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT. A signed photograph of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Estimate $500-800
    DOYLE, July 23: [ARION PRESS]. ABBOTT, EDWIN A. Flatland. A Romance of Many Dimensions. San Francisco, 1980. Estimate $2,000-3,000.
    DOYLE, July 23: TOLSTOY, LYOF N. and NATHAN HASKELL DOLE, translator. Anna Karénina ... in eight parts. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., [1886]. Estimate: $400-600
    DOYLE, July 23: ROWLING, J.K. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. London: Bloomsbury, 2000. Estimate $1,200-1,800

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