In memory of Laura Black

[reviews_and_ramblings]

ROGER LONGRIGG was the author of 55 books. There is nothing unique about this statistic. Many writers have achieved a similar output. What was unique was that the authorship of each was concealed behind one of eight different noms de plume. Even more remarkable was that the books in each different category were financially profitable.

Readers of the busty Scottish historical novels supposedly written by Laura Black would have been surprised to know that Rosalind Erskine, creator of the saucy The Passion-Flower Hotel (1962), came from the same stable. Or that Ivor Drummond, the Ian Fleming lookalike, was the author of The History of Horse Racing (1972).

He enjoyed the mystery and mischief of his various pseudonymous selves, and never failed to reply in character to their fan-mail. Rosalind Erskine, in particular, received some interesting entreaties from lesbian readers, fascinated by his novel about a group of public schoolgirls who turned their school gym into a brothel. The intrigue surrounding the authorship of The Passion-Flower Hotel was spoiled when Longrigg was exposed by the gossip columnist Richard Berens, in the William Hickey column of the Daily Express, putting an end to one of the more amusing episodes of Longrigg's secret life.

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