Black Door Press is a small independent publishing company based in central London. It was founded in 2016 to specialise in memoirs, histories and biographies. 

 

Within days of opening for business we were sent a manuscript from two elderly gentlemen who claimed to have been decorated officers during the Second World War and then operatives in a peculiar type of secret service up until the 1980s. Their memoirs were contained within a series of letters, which revealed a fractious and volatile relationship stretching back over 70 years.

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Unfortunately after reading them we declined, explaining that we were unable to publish on the grounds of taste, decency, libel risk, commercial viability, the overblown prose style and our general unease.

 

Sadly this was not the end of the matter. After speaking with the Majors’ legal representative, Massingberd Q.C., we came to understand that by signing for the manuscript’s delivery we’d formed an unbreakable contract requiring us to publish it.

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We therefore warmly welcome our new authors to the Black Door stable. 

 

We are legally obliged to state that: Scoundrels Volume One is the sweepingly tragic, emotionally devastating, throbbingly honest and searingly profound memoirs of two of England’s greatest unsung heroes, Major Victor Montgomery Cornwall and Major Arthur St. John Trevelyan. Spanning much of the 20th Century, it is an epic tale of love, war, sex, adventure, deceit and murder, centred on the infamous gentlemen’s club, Scoundrels of Piccadilly. 

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Majors Cornwall and Trevelyan will resist all requests for comment on the contents of this work. All complaints and claims for libel should be referred to Massingberd Q.C. at Broadsword Chambers, Middle Inner Temple, London.

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