The Birds (1936)
Frank Baker
With a new introduction by Ken Mogg
Book Description
Those who are old enough to remember still speak of the days “before the birds came.” For the birds did come, descending on London by the thousands or even millions, inexplicably and seemingly out of nowhere. At first, the birds did little but watch, and Londoners found them amusing, if perhaps a bit odd. But then the birds began to show their sinister side: attacking, maiming, and even killing in incidents of tremendous brutality and violence. Were they a force of nature, or a supernatural manifestation? No one knew: the only thing that was clear was that the birds had only one aim: the destruction of mankind, and no one had any idea how to stop them. . . .
The Birds (1936) went largely unnoticed when originally published, but after the release of Alfred Hitchcock’s popular film in 1963, Frank Baker (1908-1983) threatened to sue, believing his book had inspired the film. The Birds was last reprinted in 1964, in a “revised” edition that in fact failed to incorporate hundreds of additions, deletions, and corrections Baker had made. This new edition is based on Baker’s personal copy of the book and includes his numerous handwritten and typewritten revisions, making this definitive text available for the first time. This edition also features a new introduction by Hitchcock scholar Ken Mogg.
Frank Baker
With a new introduction by Ken Mogg
Book Description
Those who are old enough to remember still speak of the days “before the birds came.” For the birds did come, descending on London by the thousands or even millions, inexplicably and seemingly out of nowhere. At first, the birds did little but watch, and Londoners found them amusing, if perhaps a bit odd. But then the birds began to show their sinister side: attacking, maiming, and even killing in incidents of tremendous brutality and violence. Were they a force of nature, or a supernatural manifestation? No one knew: the only thing that was clear was that the birds had only one aim: the destruction of mankind, and no one had any idea how to stop them. . . .
The Birds (1936) went largely unnoticed when originally published, but after the release of Alfred Hitchcock’s popular film in 1963, Frank Baker (1908-1983) threatened to sue, believing his book had inspired the film. The Birds was last reprinted in 1964, in a “revised” edition that in fact failed to incorporate hundreds of additions, deletions, and corrections Baker had made. This new edition is based on Baker’s personal copy of the book and includes his numerous handwritten and typewritten revisions, making this definitive text available for the first time. This edition also features a new introduction by Hitchcock scholar Ken Mogg.
reviews
“The most original piece of imaginative fiction since Wells wrote The War of the Worlds.” -Birmingham Mail
“Against the novels written for wholesale consumption, the fantasies of Frank Baker are an unfailing delight to those who have the necessary passport to his world.” - New York Times
“The story . . . is ingenious, and succeeds in creating a sinister atmosphere.” - Time and Tide
“[A] greatly welcome Valancourt edition … Frank Baker is an unusual and appealing writer, at times quite similar to that grandmaster of the supernatural, Arthur Machen.” – Michael Dirda, Washington Post
“Against the novels written for wholesale consumption, the fantasies of Frank Baker are an unfailing delight to those who have the necessary passport to his world.” - New York Times
“The story . . . is ingenious, and succeeds in creating a sinister atmosphere.” - Time and Tide
“[A] greatly welcome Valancourt edition … Frank Baker is an unusual and appealing writer, at times quite similar to that grandmaster of the supernatural, Arthur Machen.” – Michael Dirda, Washington Post
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BOOK DETAILS
ISBN: 1939140498 ISBN-13: 978-1939140494 $16.99 US, 204 pp. Trade paper Published 2013 |
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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Frank Baker was born in London in 1908. From a young age, he had a deep interest in church music, serving as a chorister at Winchester Cathedral as a boy from 1919 to 1924. From 1924 to 1929, Baker worked as a marine insurance clerk in the City of London, an experience that he later fictionalized in The Birds (1936). He resigned in 1929 to take on secretarial work at an ecclesiastical music school where he hoped to make a career of music; during this time he also worked as a church organist.
He soon abandoned his musical studies and went to St. Just, on the west coast of Cornwall, where he became organist of the village church and lived alone in a stone cottage. It was during this time that he began writing; his first novel, The Twisted Tree, was published in 1935 by Peter Davies after nine other publishers rejected it. It was well received by critics and prompted Baker to continue writing. In 1936, he published The Birds, which sold only about 300 copies and which its author described simply as “a failure.” Nonetheless, a year after the release of Alfred Hitchcock’s popular film of the same name in 1963, The Birds was reissued in paperback by Panther and received new attention. Baker’s most successful and enduring work was Miss Hargreaves (1940), a comic fantasy in which two young people invent a story about an elderly woman, only to find that their imagination has in fact brought her to life.
During the Second World War, Baker became an actor and toured Britain before getting married in 1943 to Kathleen Lloyd, with whom he had three children. Baker continued to write, publishing more than a dozen more books, including Mr. Allenby Loses the Way (1945), Embers (1947), My Friend the Enemy (1948) and Talk of the Devil (1956). Baker died in Cornwall of cancer in 1983.
He soon abandoned his musical studies and went to St. Just, on the west coast of Cornwall, where he became organist of the village church and lived alone in a stone cottage. It was during this time that he began writing; his first novel, The Twisted Tree, was published in 1935 by Peter Davies after nine other publishers rejected it. It was well received by critics and prompted Baker to continue writing. In 1936, he published The Birds, which sold only about 300 copies and which its author described simply as “a failure.” Nonetheless, a year after the release of Alfred Hitchcock’s popular film of the same name in 1963, The Birds was reissued in paperback by Panther and received new attention. Baker’s most successful and enduring work was Miss Hargreaves (1940), a comic fantasy in which two young people invent a story about an elderly woman, only to find that their imagination has in fact brought her to life.
During the Second World War, Baker became an actor and toured Britain before getting married in 1943 to Kathleen Lloyd, with whom he had three children. Baker continued to write, publishing more than a dozen more books, including Mr. Allenby Loses the Way (1945), Embers (1947), My Friend the Enemy (1948) and Talk of the Devil (1956). Baker died in Cornwall of cancer in 1983.