Retro is cool the world over and nostalgia is in once again. India has, however, always had a strong sense of the throwback particularly where books are concerned and many bestsellers that were household names in a bygone era and are now collectibles in the west because of their niche interest, have a much more enduring and widespread appeal in India. For us classics are forever and not just literary ones.

And particularly for Penguin that has the richest backlist amongst publishers; it is always a pleasure to bring back to life a forgotten book or series. Thus was born an all new series aptly titled Retro Revival. And to kick the series off we picked Peter O’Donnell’s Modesty Blaise, who after over two decades of exile from bookshelves will now be back. All 13...

This will be followed by a reissue of the nine historical adventure romance novels of Madeleine Brent.

The Madeleine Brent novels from Penguin India
The author description as it appears on the opening page of the Madeleine Brent books was the description the world knew for over 20 years. In one of the best kept secrets in the publishing world it was but recently revealed that Madeleine Brent was in fact Peter O’Donnell the creator of Modesty Blaise.

In 1969 Peter O´Donnell was asked if he could imagine writing a Gothic novel for his publisher. He was not particularly enthusiastic about it, but let himself be persuaded to give it a try - under a female alias, though, because this kind of books was meant for a mainly female audience. Peter O´Donnell decided upon the name Madeleine Brent. MB - Modesty Blaise’s initials as an insider joke ...

Peter O´Donnell wrote the first four chapters as an experiment, then heard no more about it for a long time, until an American publisher got hold of the manuscript and was enthused. Now Peter had a problem. Because he´d never thought the project would be a success he had no idea how his story was going to end ...

But Tregaron´s Daughter proved to be a great success in America as well as in Europe and eight further novels of this genre followed. His American publisher never learnt that Madeleine Brent was a nom de plume for more than twenty years and the correspondence invariably went to Dear Madeleine. To give his signature a more female touch Peter O´Donnell had his wife sign the answering letters.

Madeleine Brent even won the Romantic Novel of the Year award for 1978 for Merlin’s Keep. And of course Madeleine Brent could never personally receive the literary awards she won with her novels  . . .

The Madeleine Brent novels in Penguin India’s Retro Revival series:
Tregaron’s Daughter, 1971
Moonraker’s Bride, 1973
Kirkby’s Changeling, (also published under the title Stranger at Wildings), 1975
Merlin’s Keep, 1977
The Capricorn Stone, 1979
The Long Masquerade, 1981
A Heritage of Shadows, 1983
Stormswift, 1984
Golden Urchin, 1986

The third major reissue in our retro revival series will be the Complete Garth in a collectible 5-volume hardback graphic novel box set. Garth is a character well known to most Indians through newspaper strips and a brief run as comic books from Indrajal comics. Though there have been a couple of annuals and two dedicated volumes, never before has Garth ever been collected. So for the first time ever fans can get all 16000 strips covering 165 stories in 3000 plus pages.