Crooked Cross: the lost 1934 masterpiece that predicted the rise of the Nazis

In an upcoming BRLSI talk, Francesca Beauman talks about best-selling title Crooked Cross by Sally Carson, a lost masterpiece from 1934 about the rise of the Nazis in a small town in Bavaria, which Persephone Books republished in 2025. It is extraordinarily prescient, anticipating all the horrors the Nazis were about to inflict on the world.

 When Crooked Cross was first published it was lauded by critics and was turned into a West End play. Carson wrote two sequels, The Prisoner (1936) and A Traveller Came By (1938) but with the outbreak of war and Carson’s death in 1941, her work was forgotten — until now. The Guardian described the republished work as “a word-of-mouth jaw-dropper, passed from hand to hand”.

Francesca Beauman is Managing Director of Persephone Books in Bath. She grew up in London, studied History at Cambridge, and began her career as the host and writer of a number of television shows for BBC1, Channel 4 and Channel 5. She is the author of seven books, including a history of the pineapple and a history of personal ads; she remains the world’s leading expert on both these subjects. She is also a regular chairperson at literary festivals and arts events and Vice-Chair of the Holburne Museum.