In April of 2019, in the run-up to the auction sale of an exceptional number of lots related to her, Daphne du Maurier made national news once again when two unknown short poems by her were found on one sheet of paper, hidden at the back of a small framed picture of herself in a bathing costume—the very picture her father Gerald used as a model for the silver radiator mascot placed at the front of his car in December 1930. Part of the interest aroused by this finding may have been caused by the title of one of the poems, “Song of the Happy Prostitute,” but that did not prevent the discoverer from explaining, “It’s always exciting when you come across something like this—it’s an auctioneer’s dream. The poems are not the juvenile ones of a child nor the polished products of her later years” (Roddy Lloyd, qtd. in Singh).
Likewise, it is a researcher’s dream to discover short stories which, originally published over ninety years ago (in 1928, 1929, and 1931 respectively), have never been...