The English Novel of History and Society - 1940-1980

Sep 20, 2026

A scholarly study of the English novel of history and society from 1940 to 1980, focused on six major novelists: Richard Hughes, Henry Green, Anthony Powell, Angus Wilson, Kingsley Amis, and V. S. Naipaul. The author explains selection criteria centered on reputational timing after 1940, the incontestable existence of those reputations, and the overall quality of the writers’ work, aiming for penetrating evaluations of each figure’s novels across their post-1940 careers.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryStory & Novel

FormatPDF

Pages265

Reading Time6 h 48 min

AccessFree to download

Preface and Acknowledgements

Introduction

Richard Hughes

Henry Green

Anthony Powell

Angus Wilson

Kingsley Amis

V.S. Naipaul

Index

THE ENGLISH NOVELOF HISTORY&SOCIETY,I940-80 ·PAT RICK S WIN DEN· KINGSLEY A M IS HEN RYG REEN RICHA RDH U GHES V.S.NAIPAU LANT HONYPOWE L LA N GU SW ILSON THE ENGLISH NOVEL OF HISTORY AND SOCIETY,1940-80 THE ENGLISHNOVEL OFHISTORY ANDSOCIETY,1940-80 Richard Hughes,Henry Green,Anthony Powell,Angus Wilson,Kingsley Amis,V.S.Naipaul PATRICK SWINDEN Palgrave Macmillan ISBN 978-1-349-17512-3(eBook) ISBN 978-1-349-17514-7 DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-17512-3 C Patrick Swinden 1984Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1984978-0-333-34603-7 All rights reserved.For information,write: St.Martin's Press,Inc.,175 Fifth Avenue,New York,NY 10010 Published in the United Kingdom by The Macmillan Press Ltd.First published in the United States of America in 1984 ISBN 978-0-312-25439-1 | Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data | | --- | | Swinden,Patrick. | | The English novel of history and society,1940-1980. | | Includes index. | | 1.English fiction-20th century-History and criticism. | | 2.Historical fiction,English.
3.Social history | | in literature. | | I.Title. | | 823'.081'09
83-40520
PR888.H5S94 1984
ISBN 978-0-312-25439-1 | | | For Martin and Anne Bygate Contents Preface and Acknowledgements 1X 1 1 Introduction 2 Richard Hughes24 3 Henry Green57 4 Anthony Powell93 5 Angus Wilson130 6 Kingsley Amis 180 7 V.S.Naipaul 210 Index # Preface andAcknowledgements This book is neither a general history of the novelin England sincethe Second World War,nor a compendium of essays on sixnovelists of the period,arbitrarily selected at the whim of thecritic.Each of the novelists I have written about at length hasbeen selected on the basis of his ability to satisfy three require-ments. The first of these was that his reputation was made,orsubstantially added to,in the years following 1940.Obviously thisapplies to the writers included in the last three chapters,becausetheir first novels were not written until after that date.I think itapplies to the other three because,although they had producedinteresting work before the war,the novels on which theirreputations now rest were written later.(Or,in the case ofHughes,his reputation would have been a very different one-based on the single novelAHigh Windin Jamaica.Perhaps the sameapplies to Henry Green and Living.) The second requirement was that there should be no argumentabout the fact of the reputation itself:i.e.it might be possible toargue that the reputations of any or all of these writers have beeninflated,but it is not possible to argue that they do not have areputation.Therefore what they have written is important in aliterary historical sense,even if not in a more strictly literarycritical one. The third requirement was that they should not be,generallyspeaking,bad writers.As a matter of fact I think three out of thesix have written what I would consider downright bad novels.Most novelists,even the best,do-from time to time.But whatseems to me good in their writing is good enough to warrant theirbeing taken seriously as novelists of society.It is for this reasonthat I have not included essays on such writers as Evelyn Waughand Ivy Compton-Burnett,whose best novels it seems to me were # Preface and Acknowledgements written before or during the War.Paul Scott and Iris Murdoch Ihave written on elsewhere.Other contemporary novelists withhigh reputations I have ignored not only because of pressure ofspace,but because those reputations seem to me to have beenbuilt on insecure foundations.I should add that this doesn'tnecessarily apply to novelists younger than V.S.Naipaul,since Ihave seldom felt able to provide a soundjudgement on them-nothaving had enough material to work on,or not having lived with itfor a sufficient length of time to feel that I really know it. As a result,this book does not seek to advance any particularargument about directions in which English f

FAQs

What is the main focus and time span of the book?

The book examines developments in the English novel of history and society from 1940 to 1980, emphasizing how this kind of fiction persisted and evolved across the decades.

How were the six novelists selected?

Selection depended on reputations established or substantially added to after 1940, on the undeniable fact of those reputations, and on whether the authors could be considered, generally speaking, not bad writers.

What approach does the author take in each chapter?

Each chapter is designed as an in-depth study of one novelist, combining representative examples from different phases of the writer’s post-1940 career with comprehensive evaluation and detailed analysis of selected novels.

Sep 20, 2026

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