16
 

Carol Z. Rothkopf
 

concluding that the younger Michael "... must find some name
to put on your stories which cannot be mistaken for mine." And
that, of course, is how it is now possible to tell Michael Sadler from
Michael Sadleir.

It was precisely such small but often highly significant details that
Sadler/Sadleir patiently hunted on his way to becoming, arguably.
 

Sadler and Sadleir, father and son, circa 1915
 

the most notable bibliophile and bibliographer of his time. Remark¬
ably, such time-consuming and painstaking labor did not stop him
from publishing more novels, of which the most important are
Fanny by Gaslight (1940, made into a film in 1944) and Forlorn Sun¬
set (1946), both of which are set in the London underworld of the
late nineteenth century. To an imponant degree, the appeal of these
novels comes from the total authenticity of the background and set¬
ting that Sadleir provided.

Readers who are at all familiar with Sadleir the bibliographer and
Sadleir the bibliophile will know that the source of this authenticity
was the writer's own collection of what he called "raffish fictions