The royalties bit only actually applies to the UK performances, so when I directed a production here in Australia we donated what would have been the royalties to the Perth Childrens' Hospital as a thank you and to show respect to the author's wishes.

You must read Brat Farrah.

Not only an author but she and her father were hugely instrumental in live theatre in NZ.

Have you discovered Josephine Tey yet? The Daughter of Time, Miss Pym Disposes, Brat Farrar and The Franchise Affaire are among the best detective/mystery stories ever written.

Send it to their publishers, who will forward it on if the author enjoys interacting with fans or send you a nice note of appreciation and a signed photo (if you're lucky) if the author doesn't want to be bothered or is too old to care.

When Desmond Bagley died he left one book unfinished (Juggernaut) and the manuscript of another that he had written years before, and not submitted to a publisher since he felt it wasn't up to his usual standard. (Night of Error)

Both books were later published, doing his reputation absolutely no good at all, although giving his publishers some extra money. Not cancelled, but they should have been. This is where a literary executor would have been useful.

What an interesting question!

After much thought I can narrow it down to three:

Huckleberry Finn, from Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. (Also from the Greg Matthews sequel, The Further Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Ed Ricketts from Cannery Row, Sweet Thursday and The Log From the Sea of Cortez (real person, but definitely a protagonist)

Toad from The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame.

Further thought has given me Keith Stewart from Trustee from the Toolroom by Nevil Shute (although many of his heroes are just as memorable)

and His Grace, Sir Samuel Vimes, Duke of Ankh Morpork, Blackboard Monitor and Commander of the City Watch from Terry Pratchett's Discworld.

Short answer is 'yes'. If you look at the private correspondence of the times that have been published, there is a great deal of overt affection and endearments between men.

Ed McBain's 87th Precinct series is good. Peter Robinson's DCI Banks series is excellent and Barry Maitland's Brock and Koll series is outstanding.

'I keep my dog, prose, in order to feed my cat, poetry' is the exact quote - I always thought it was great. Thank you for reminding me.

Now, isn't that strange, I rather enjoyed Count Belisarius, but battled with 'Wife to Mr Milton'. And as for 'The White Goddess' - I struggled. But it was worth it.

The problem is that there is little real magic and fantasy in the world so non-fiction books about dragons are thin on the ground.

I began professionally reviewing books in the early 80s. Over the years I have seen a steady decline in the quality of both orthography and proof-reading. At least one book, privately printed, was almost unreadable because of it.

Part of the problem is that costs are rising and often proofing can be air tasked or subbed out to freelancers, who don't have the experience, but are cheap.

At the very least, no book should have any error other than grammar or 'literals' (words spelled correctly, but the wrong word - their for there and so on) now we have spell-checkers.

But often, and increasingly, that's not true.

Just another reason to love old books.

You will find in Boswell's book on Dr Johnson that Johnson habitually uses 'Sir' even when being really, really rude and verbally vicious. "Your wife, sir, while pretending to run a bawdy house is actually a receiver of stolen property'. (1709-1784)