THE 100th anniversary of the birth of a Skipton-born author is being celebrated with the publication of the latest British Library Crime Classics series.

Sergeant Cluff Stands Firm, originally published in 1960, will be relaunched on Tuesday.

It was written by Gil North, the pen name of Geoffrey Horne, who was born and bred in Skipton (1916-1988).

The book is being published to mark the centenary of the author's birth and it is a chance for a new generation of readers to discover the Cluff books, with The Methods of Sergeant Cluff being published on September 10.

To mark the publication of the second book in September, an exhibition on the author is planned at Skipton Library, with material from its archives.

The Cluff books – there is a series of 11 Sergeant Cluff detective stories – were a huge critical and commercial success when they first appeared in the 1960s. They are set in Gunnarshaw, a fictional Dales market town, based on Skipton.

Horne was born and bred in Skipton, where his father was the town clerk for 17 years. He was educated at Ermysted's Grammar School, where he became head boy, before studying at Christ's College in Cambridge. He took a double First, and also acquired a diploma in social anthropology.

After working as a civil servant in colonial Africa for many years, he returned to his beloved native Yorkshire in the mid-50s and began to write. At first he wrote under his own name, producing novels that drew on his knowledge of Africa, a children’s book and short stories. He started writing detective stories mainly for ‘relaxation’, and Cluff was created.

Cluff was televised in the 1960s, brought to life by Leslie Sands. When Horne was first approached by the BBC with a view to adapting Cluff, he was less than enthusiastic and declined to attend a meeting in London, a place he hated. Instead, the BBC executives came to him. He personally wrote every episode and all scripts in two television series.

Filmed in and around Skipton, where Horne had grown up and where his widow, Betty, and son, Josh, still live (his daughter Sarah lives in Australia), Cluff regularly attracted 12 million viewers until the series came to an end in 1965. Although the first series has been lost to posterity, the second series survives in the BBC archives, though it has never been commercially available on DVD.

His son, Josh, said: "It's fair to say there's a good deal of my father in Cluff.

"He may have studied at Cambridge and worked for many years overseas, but he remained at heart a stolid Dalesman, strongly conservative in his outlook. And I'm pleased my father's Cluff novels are available again, so once more readers can enjoy getting to know him."

The book will be relaunched at the Grove Bookshop in Ilkley next week, and taking part will be award-winning author Martin Edwards, who is a great advocate of Cluff and has written introductions for both books, which argue strongly why we need to rediscover and reconnect with these hidden gems.

"Cluff is a distinctive and impressive character, and the crisp, concisely written stories about him retain their power to this day... [the author's] focus is not on mystification for the sake of game-playing, but on the human condition," said Mr Edwards, who has just won Edgar, Agatha and HRF Keating awards for his book The Golden Age of Murde.

"His work shows the influence of Georges Simenon, and his most famous character, Inspector Jules Maigret."

The Grove Bookshop launch is a free event but tickets are required, and are available from the shop via info@grovebookshop.com or on 01943 609335. The event starts at 7pm and there will be wine served.