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Marcus Gipps, whose day job is as an editor at Gollancz, is branching out with a personal project to publish the complete Uncle novels by J P Martin.
Gipps plans to use crowdfunding site Kickstarter to bring back into print the six children’s books from the 1960s and 70s. The anarchic tales about a millionaire elephant, illustrated by Sir Quentin Blake, have slipped into obscurity despite being initially well received. Neil Gaiman, Andy Riley and Unbound founder Justin Pollard are among the Uncle fans who have agreed to write forewords for Gipps, with illustrator Blake saying he is “very much in favour” of the initiative.
The first two novels, Uncle and Uncle Cleans Up, are still in print in the US through the New York Review of Books children’s classics series. However Random House, which controls the rights, has granted Gipps world English-language omnibus rights to produce a single volume containing the two titles and the remaining novels: Uncle and his Detective, Uncle and the Treacle Trouble, Uncle and Claudius the Camel and Uncle and the Battle for Badgertown. While the first two novels have remained available, on and off, over the years, the remaining four have not been reprinted since the 1970s.
Gipps said his Kickstarter project aims for a target of £8,000 to fund a 400-copy print run of The Complete Uncle for fans at £30 for each “lavish” copy. But if the fundraising goes well—and one fan has already pledged £2,000—the book will get a bigger run and full distribution via Matador Press, which is co-ordinating production.
“The books do feel Dahl-ish, they are very surreal,” Gipps said. “Uncle is very rich and has bought a castle—he is a bit pompous but has a good heart—and he has a monkey butler, a cat detective, talking parrots and dwarves, and enemies including Hateman and Hitmouse. It’s very much led by the author’s imagination, and started out as stories he told his children. The books are lovely, and I see no reason why they have fallen by the wayside when so many other children’s books have not.”
Gipps also has access to family recordings of author J P Martin—a Methodist minister and grandfather to James Currey, creator of the Heinemann African Writers series—reading chapters of the books aloud.
A Facebook page for the initiative has been set up at: facebook.com/pages/The-Complete-Uncle-by-JP-Martin-and-Quentin-Blake/168982773251676.