Dictionary of Literary Biography

British Novelists, 1930-1959 (Part 1: A-L, Part 2: M-Z)
Volume 15
Published by Gale

Writing during one of the most volatile periods in British history -- a time that encompassed a worldwide economic depression, World War II, and the economic and political decline of the British Empire -- the novelists featured in this volume produced some of the most memorable fiction in the history of British literature. Novelists of the period 1930-1959 held true to the path established by such writers as Austen, Dickens, Lawrence and Conrad. They displayed the particularly British characteristics of a lack of innovation, a distaste for literary abstraction, a constant interest in the interaction of individuals within their society, and a sense of historical continuity.

59 entries include: Kingsley Amis, Samuel Beckett, William Golding, Graham Greene, Christopher Isherwood, Doris Lessing, George Orwell, Anthony Powell, V.S. Pritchett, Muriel Spark, J.R.R.Tolkien and Evelyn Waugh.

Review:

"It is hands-down the best overall literary reference work ever published, a proverbial diamond as big as the Ritz..."
-- Library Journal (June 15, 2006)
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