I guess this is a hard question to answer because, if a book has faded into oblivion, likely no one has come in contact with it in a long time. There are also plenty of books that go from the press straight to the literary graveyard, but I'm not interested on those. I am talking about books that achieved widespread recognition then faded away.

The question came to my mind when discussing with a friend about the hype surrounding Sally Rooney's "Beautiful World, Where are you?" The hype around her books, at this point, seems to be a more interesting and bigger topic than the books themselves. Will her books survive the long haul or will they follow the same road as something like Twilight, dying a slow death or, in the best case scenario - for the book -, turning into a niche product for the most devote fandom? (If Rooney's books are good is another matter.)

During the discussion, I remembered this passage in Orwell's 'Bookshop Memories':

"It is therefore worth noting that of all the authors in our library the one who ‘went out’ the best was – Priestley? Hemingway? Walpole? Wodehouse? No, Ethel M. Dell, with Warwick Deeping a good second and Jeffrey Farnol, I should say, third."

Interestingly, the most sough after authors according to Orwell are very hard to come by these days. Most of their books are out of print. Someone has examples of similar hyped authors and their vanished books?

TL;DR: Anyone has an example of a book/author that was overhyped and faded into oblivion over the years?