Alan Noel Latimer Munby (1913 - 1974) was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

, writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

 and librarian

Librarian

A librarian is an information professional trained in library and information science, which is the organization and management of information services or materials for those with information needs...

.

Born in Hampstead

Hampstead

Hampstead is an area of London, England, north-west of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Camden in Inner London, it is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations and for Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland...

, Munby was educated at Clifton College

Clifton College

Clifton College is a co-educational independent school in Clifton, Bristol, England, founded in 1862. In its early years it was notable for emphasising science in the curriculum, and for being less concerned with social elitism, e.g. by admitting day-boys on equal terms and providing a dedicated...

 and King's College, Cambridge

King's College, Cambridge

King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college's full name is "The King's College of our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge", but it is usually referred to simply as "King's" within the University....

. He is best known for his slim volume of ghost stories, The Alabaster Hand, most of which was written in a German prisoner-of-war camp during World War Two.
Munby worked in the antiquarian book trade with Bernard Quaritch, Limited (1935-37) and Sotheby & Company (1937-39, 1945-47). He became Librarian at King's College, Cambridge in 1947 and Fellow in 1948; he was J.P.R. Lyell Reader in Bibliography, University of Oxford (1962-63) and Sandars Reader in Bibliography, University of Cambridge (1969-70). He was elected President of the Bibliographical Society

Bibliographical Society

Founded in 1892, the Bibliographical Society is the senior learned society dealing with the study of the book and its history, based in London, England....

 in 1974 and died during his term of office.

Munby's first marriage was to Joan Margaret Edelsten; his second marriage was to Sheila Rachel Crowther-Smith.

Reception

Boucher

Anthony Boucher

Anthony Boucher was an American science fiction editor and author of mystery novels and short stories. He was particularly influential as an editor. Between 1942 and 1947 he acted as reviewer of mostly mystery fiction for the San Francisco Chronicle...

 and McComas

J. Francis McComas

Jesse Francis McComas was an American science fiction editor. McComas wrote several stories on his own in the 1950s using both his own name and the pseudonym Webb Marlowe....

 praised the stories in The Alabaster Hand as "quietly terrifying modernizations of the M.R. James tradition.".

Works

• (ed.) Letters to Leigh Hunt from his son Vincent (Cloanthus Press, 1934)
• (with Desmond Flower) English Poetical Autographs (Cassell, 1938)
• The Alabaster Hand and other Ghost Stories (Dobson, 1949)
• Phillips Studies, 5 vols. (Cambridge University Press, 1951–1960)

External links