Novelist, dramatist, short story writer, naturalistic.
Important novels:
• Liza of Lambeth (1897): Naturalistic, Picture of life.
• Of Human Bondage (1915): Portrays a character that drifts, outdated views, belief in the meaninglessness of life, autobiographical account of loneliness.
• The Moon and Sixpence (1919): Life of Paul Gauguin, examination of character without root.
• Cakes and Ale (1930): Real life is lost between public and private masks, witty, Malicious, satirical, comedy, highly entertaining.
• The Razor’s Edge (1944): Maugham seeks the meaning of life.
John BoyntonPriestley (1894-1984)
Revived the sane and vital telling of a story in The Good Companion, having a great defect of being too sentimental.
Other novels are:
• Let the People Sing (1939)
• Daylight on Saturday (1943)
• Bright Day (1946)
Charles Langbridge Morgan (1894 – 1958)
Philosophical approach.
Important novels:
• Portrait in the Mirror (1929)
• The Fountain (1932)
• Sparkenbroke (1936)
• The Voyage (1940)
• The Judge’s Story (1947)
Clive Staples Lewis (1898 – 1963)
Ethical and philosophical views. Chief books:
• The Problem of Pain (1940)
• The Screwtape Letters (1942)
• The Great Divorce (1945)
• Miracles (1947)
Herbert Ernest Bates (1905 – 1974)
Evolved a use of English effective in the development of prose style.
Important novels:
• A House of Women (1936)
• Spella Ho (1938)
• Fair Stood the Wind for France (1944)
• The Cruise of the Bread Winner (1946)
• The Purple Plain (1947)
Frederick Lawrence Greene (1902–1953)
Inevitability of the power of emotions.
Theme: Life after death with firm views.
Structure: Religious.
Important novels:
• On the Night of the Fire (1939)
• The Sound of the Winter (1940)
• A Fragment of Glass (1947)
• Mist on the Waters (1948)
Graham Greene (1904-1991)
Culture is a living force in his novels.
Man---essentially good, but flamed by evil.
Important novels:
• The Man Within (1929)
• Stamboul Train (1932)
• England Made Me (1935)
• Brighton Rock (1938)
• The Power and the Glory (1940)
• The Heart of the Matter (1948)
Later Novels:
• The Quiet American (1955)
• Our Man in Havana (1958)
• A Burnt Out Case (1961)
• The Human Factor (1978)
• Monsignor Quixote (1982)
World War II turned already establish writer toward traditional values.
Frank Swinnerton (1884 - 1982)
Detached and amiable appreciation of people, quite satisfying treatment of life and its significance.
Well-known novels:
• Nocturne (1917)
• The Georgian House (1932)
• The Doctor’s Wife Comes to Stay (1950)
Richard Thomas Church (1893 – 1972)
Concerned with contemporary life.
Important novels:
• High Summer (1931)
• The Porch (1937)
• The Room Within
• The Sample
• The Other Side
William Golding (1911-1993)
Most significant post-war novelist.
Important novels: • Lord of the Flies (1954): Savagery, religious theme of original sin.
• Pincher Martin (1956)
• Rites of Passage (1980)
• The Paper Man (1983)
Golding was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1983.
George Orwell (1903-1950)
Satirist.
Important novels:
• The Road to Wigan Pier (1937)
• Homage to Catalonia (1938)
• Animal Farm (1945): Karl Marx theory, powerful anti-communist satire.
• Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949): Attack on totalitarianism.
C.P.Snow (1905-1980)
Scientist, novelist.
• The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution (1959): Non-fiction, argument.
• Lewis Eliot: Series, noted for careful analysis of bureaucracy and the corrupting influences of power.
Malcolm Lowry (1909-1957)
Old generation writer.
• Under the Volcano (1947): Nightmare world of an alcoholic Englishman in Mexico.
Anthony Dymoke Powell (1905- 2000)
Published five novels prior to the war.
• A Dance to the Music of Time (1951-1975): 12-novel series, satiric survey of British society, from 1920s to1960s, portrayed in the lives of young men.
Angry Young Men: The literature of the 1950s was as varied as at any time, but much of it was made notable by the appearance of a new breed of writers called the ANGRY YOUNG MEN. This phrase wasoriginally taken from the title of LeslieAllen Paul'sautobiography, Angry Young Man (1951).The word angry is probably inappropriate; dissentient or disgruntled perhaps is more accurate. The group not only expressed discontent with the staid, hypocritical institutions of English society-the so-called Establishment-but betrayed disillusionment with itself and with its own achievements. Most of these were of lower middle-class or working class backgrounds. Although not all personally known to one another they had in common an outspoken irreverence for the British class system and the pretensions of the aristocracy. They strongly disapproved of the elitist universities, the Church of England, and the drabness of working-class life.
Writers: English writers of the 1950s whose heroes share certain rebellious and critical attitudes toward society.In the 1960s these writers turned to more individualized themes and were no longer considered a group.
John Osborne(1929 – 1994)
• Look Back in Anger (1956): Trend of the period was crystallized.
John Wain (1925 - 1994)
• Hurry on Down (1953): Trend of the period was crystallized.
John Braine (1922 - 1986)
• Room at the Top (1957)
Alan Sillitoe (1928 - 2010)
• Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1958)
Kingsley Amis (1922-1995)
Best writer of 50s, realist, humanist attempting to put the writer’s talent in the service of society.
• Lucky Jim (1953): Social discontent, crystallized trend.
• That Uncertain Feeling (1955):
• Take A Girl Like You (1960):
• Girl, 20 (1971):
• Stanley and the Women (1984): Virulently antifeminist.
• The Old Devils (1986): Won the Booker Prize.
Iris Murdoch (1919 - 1999)
Foremost novelist of the generation.
Her Books: • Under the Net (1954)
• The Red and the Green (1965)
• The Sea, the Sea (1978)
• Nuns and Soldiers (1980)
Angus Wilson (1913-1991)
Crisis of the educated British middle-class after World War I was his subject.
• The Wrong Set (1949): Collection of short stories, portrays the emotional crisis of World War two.
• Hemlock and After (1952): His first and the best.
Anthony Burgess (1917-1993)
Fictional explorer of modern dilemmas combining wit, moral, earnestness and touches of bizarre.
• A Clockwork Orange (1962): Comic and violent.
• Ender by Outside (1969)
• Earthly Powers (1980)
• The End of the World News (1983)
• The Kingdom of the Wicked (1985)
Doris Lessing (1919 - )
Her novels concerned with the people involved in social and political upheavals of 20th century.
• Children of violence: A series of five novels begins with Martha Quest (1952) and ends with The Four-Gated City (1969) a vision of the world after nuclear disaster.
• Canopus in Argos: Archives (1979): Science-fiction sequence.
Muriel Spark (1918 - 2006)
Human Fantasy:
• The Ballad of Peckham Rye (1960)
• The Girls of Slender Means (1963)
Sinister Nature:
• The Mandelbaum Gate (1965)
• The Driver’s Seat (1970)
• Not to Disturb (1971).
Religious thoughts and sexual comedy:
• The Only Problem (1984)
Best known: • Memento Mori (1959)
• The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961).
After 1975 there were several intentionally experimental novels such as The White Hotel (1981) by D.M.Thomas (1935) and Midnight Children (1981) by Salman Rushdie (1947). Rushdie’s later novel The Satanic Verses (1988) prompted Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini to issue a death threat against the author, because the book was considered blasphemous by Muslims. But the more traditional literature persisted in popularity. Anita Brookner (1928) wrote carefully crafted and unpretentious fiction in A Start in Life (1981) and Hotel du Lac (1984).
The later generation of satirical writers included Martin Amis (1949), the son of Kingsley Amis. His novels included Money (1984), London Fields (1989) and Time’s Arrow (1991). Julian Barnes (1946) wrote Flaubert’s Parrot (1984) and A History of the World in 101/2 Chapters(1989).
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