'Susan Hill writes ghost stories - I make no comment about those ghost stories, but because she is part of the literati they are elevated.' 'I'm not into high literature, but I think all my books are literate,' he says. In his house in Sussex, with its unbroken views of the South Downs and its indoor swimming pool (bought on the back of his 30 million world sales), Herbert need not worry too much that he still lacks literary cachet. 'Smith's more than made up for saying that,' he says. The Rats obstinately went on to sell a million copies in Britain. Smith's and asked if they had the book, they replied no, and nor were they likely to. 'Enough to make a rodent retch, undeniably and enough to make any human pitch the book aside.' When Herbert went into his local W. 'By page 20 the rats are slurping up the sleeping baby after the brave bow-wow has fought to the death to protect its charge,' wrote Henry Tilney. His hard times at the hands of the posher papers started with The Observer's review of The Rats in 1974. Written for an anthology of anti-racist writing, it is a serviceable allegory of a certain shunning of the macabre imagination of James Herbert. Originally published in the Observer on 14 February 1993.
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