We have been selling local author Clive Murphy’s ‘Ordinary Lives’ first editions for many years now. We were delighted when we heard that after purchasing a book from us, Pan Macmillan would be republishing one of the series.

'Love, Dears’ will appear in a paperback edition, retitled as 'Up in Lights’. The novel tells the dramatic story of former chorus girl Marjorie Graham, as recorded in correspondence and conversation with Clive Murphy. 

The original first editions of 'Love, Dears’ are available in store and online.

And so to Spitalfields Life, where the Gentle Author continues the quest to capture all of East End life in one compendious website, the modern Human Comedy in all its varied and various colours, shades, sounds and shapes. 

Last weekend the Gentle Author joined local man of letters Clive Murphy for a tour around his Brick Lane flat. Visitors to our Redchurch Street shop will recognise Clive as the author of such works as “The Good Deeds of A Good Woman”, “Four Acres and a Donkey” and “Oiky, The Memoirs of a Pig Man”. A Gentle Author himself, Clive took to recording the stories of those people he saw around him in 1970s Brick Lane, capturing a demotic human history in the way that many of today’s writers, bloggers and tweeters will recognise. 

We are glad to see Clive’s books attracting attention today, not least because it allows the author to pursue his interest in writing his Ribald Rhymes - not for the faint-hearted, although an ideal present for a favoured in-law. 

Our thanks go as always to the Gentle Author for this story and for use of the photographs.