The novelist Hugh Walpole was one of the most successful writers of his generation; a consummate story teller. In the 1920s and 30s he was a publisher’s dream ticket. Each new novel dramatically outsold the one before. On his lucrative literary tours of America he pulled in even bigger audiences than Charles Dickens who had done the circuit 80 years before. He was a friend of and admired by Virginia Woolf, Arnold Bennett, John Buchan, Henry James, Clemence Dane, and T.S. Eliot. He wrote more than 50 books including 36 novels. But today Walpole is largely forgotten; what caused this catastrophic decline in Walpole’s reputation?

Produced by Barney Rowntree

Broadcast on BBC Radio 4 at 11.30, on the 5th of May 2011