Leveret Press

Leveret Press Uniform Editions of Stacey Hill Farm, Milton Keynes, England was Jack Trevor Story's own imprint. Brian Darwent, in his biography Romantic Egotist, reports that the venture "was financed by two thousand pounds from the BBC for some Doctor Who scripts, six hundred for a Budgie repeat, and an injection of five thousand from his son Peter..."

It was hoped that the re-release of Hitchcock's film of The Trouble With Harry in 1983 would stimulate interest in and sales of the first Leveret book. By the time Story published his edition of Harry (1985) he found it very hard to sell copies, however. The book reprints the old American edition (Macmillan, NY) complete with line illustrations by George Maas. Story added a spoof introduction by "F. Booker-Price" (below).

Leveret only published one other book. Dwarf Goes To Oxford - One Girl In The Life Of Jack Trevor Story (1987) is, among other things, a memoir of Story's life with his wife Elaine. There are also glimpses into other times in the writer's life and, as Story notes in his introductory Acknowledgement: "...my girl has inspired a good hard stare at a writer's dynamic." Utterly indispensable for the serious Story aficionado.

The Trouble With Harry is the tale of a much-manipulated corpse in a pretty summer wood. Story set the story on the Hertfordshire heath which inspired it in that hot summer of 1947. To which glorious summer and the girl he was with, the book is forever dedicated. Besides Harry, that summer produced for them the first sprouting of a little family, Lee, Lindsay and Lorel, a substantial list of novels and westerns written by Ross Woods and the Hitchcock movie, filmed in Vermont when the leaves went wild with colour.

At the time of its first publication and its release as a film, nobody went wild with anything. At that time, in the early fifties, the critics did not know quite what to say but anyway the book was translated into fifteen languages including Hindustani and Japanese.

Now, following The Trouble With Harry’s new release as a film, premiered at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in November 1983, many people are asking for the novel.

You will want to keep this book. It has saved several lives and once brightened a funeral in New Hampshire. James R. Wagner’s family of Knoxville, Tennessee have been searching for their copy for a long time, placing Lost ads in the press. The author and his wife Elaine decided therefore to form a publishing company and issue Harry as a small, bound edition, using Macmillan’s (New York) attractive format and illustrations.

This is it.

We hope you enjoy it and will keep it or give it to a sick friend. Jack Trevor Story has a light touch for these times. Nothing in the human experience is deeper than six feet, he seems to say.

F. Booker-Price

Jack Trevor Story's texts copyright © the estate of Jack Trevor Story 2001. Not for reproduction. Copyright in all work by Jack Trevor Story is the property of the author's heirs. Permission for use of this material can be obtained through Jackie Edwards (Story), Peter Story, Lee Story or Michael Moorcock. Reproduction of copyright material whether in text, visual or audio form by unauthorised sources strictly forbidden.