Leslie Barringer
Leslie Barringer (1895-1968) was an English editor and fantasy author, best known for his fantasy novels.
Life
Barringer was a Quaker, born in England. He served in an ambulance unit during World War I. After the war he worked at various times as a civil servant and as an editor for English publishers Thomas Nelson & Sons and Amalgamated Press. Barringer and his wife had four daughters.
Works
Most of Barringer's written works were originally published in the 1920s and 1930s. His main body of work was the three-volume Neustrian Cycle beginning with Gerfalcon; these novels were set around the fourteenth century in an alternate medieval France called Neustria (historically an early division of the Frankish kingdom). In addition to the Neustrian fantasies he also wrote three historical novels of medieval England.
Posthumous revival
Obscure as an author during his own lifetime, after his death his fantasies were rediscovered and critically praised by later fantasy authors such as L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter, leading to revived interest in them. As a result, a number of reprints appeared in the 1970s and 1980s, most notably as volumes 7, 9 and 13 of the Newcastle Forgotten Fantasy Library in 1976-77. To date there has been no comparable revival of Barringer's other works.
All of Barringer's books are now out of print, although the volumes of the Neustrian Cycle are available as e-books. Copies of all of his works are held in the British Library in London.
Bibliography
Neustrian cycle
- Gerfalcon (Heinemann 1927, 310 p)
- Joris of the Rock (Heinemann 1928, 325 p)
- Shy Leopardess (Methuen 1948, 392 p)
Historical novels
- Kay the Left-Handed (Heinemann 1935, 284 p)
- Know Ye Not Agincourt? (Nelson 1936, 207 p)
- The Rose in Splendour: a Story of the Wars of Lancaster and York (Phoenix House 1953, 160 p)