AN AUTHOR who found fame setting his novels in a bizarre version of Swindon has been tipped as the future of British writing.

Jasper Fforde is one of 25 writers selected by the book industry as likely to produce the most impressive body of work in the next 25 years.

Book chain Waterstone's asked publishers, agents and editors to choose their hot tips for the next quarter century.

A list of 100 was whittled down to 25 and published this week.

Former film industry tea boy Fforde received 76 rejection letters for his first novel, The Eyre Affair, which is set in a parallel 1985 in which Wales is still a republic, the Crimean War is still raging, and an evil character is trying to kidnap Jane Eyre from the pages of Charlotte Bronte's novel.

It stars Thursday Next, a female detective who lives in a Swindon which still has recognisable landmarks such as the Magic Roundabout and neighbouring villages, but also veers into the surreal with tramps on street corners reciting poetry rather than begging and dodos kept as pets.

Fforde, pictured above, has built up a cult following and returned to Swindon in September 2005, when he led an open-top bus tour around the town, taking in the Magic Roundabout three times on the circuit.

Visitors - many of whom were already in touch with each other via Fforde forums on the internet - came from as far afield as Florida for the event, which culminated with a fancy dress party at the Goddard Arms Hotel. Fforde has been to the Swindon festival of literature twice, and director Matt Holland said: "If it's a list put together by publishers and booksellers Fforde's inclusion is hardly surprising, as his fantasy world is extremely popular.

"I would prefer to see a list from readers, but anything that gets people into reading and books is a good thing as far as I'm concerned."

Other novelists on the list include: Naomi Alderman, author of Disobedience about North London's Orthodox Jewish community; Jon McGregor who wrote If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things; Marina Lewycka, author of A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian; and historian Dominic Sandbrook.