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Through five fluctuating reputations, Ian Sansom explores very different species of near-fame: the once-fashionable and now forgotten; the critically admired but never widely read; the artists overshadowed by big names or big movements; the careers derailed by circumstance; the work that doesn’t fit what the culture is looking for. He suggests that obscurity tells us what a culture values, and just as importantly, what it overlooks. In exploring the careers of the almost-famous, Sansom charts a map of shifting tastes, attention, fashion, politics and technology.

In the fourth essay in the series, Ian reflects on the fluctuating status of novelist Barbara Comyns. Comyns’s novels get ‘rediscovered’ roughly once a decade in small waves of enthusiasm, but never settle into the canon. She is the writer who arrives over and over, but never stays.

Presenter: Ian Sansom
Producer: Sara Davies
Sound Designer: Matt Bainbridge