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This volume explores how religion influenced the works of mid-century writers and how authors used Christian ideas for social and political ends in the 1940s and 1950s.
List of contents
- 1: Introduction
- 2: Bombed Churches
- 3: Saints and Miracles: The End of the Affair
- 4: Muriel Spark and Evil
- 5: Rebuilding the Church: Barbara Pym's Parochialism
- 6: Conclusion
- Works Cited
About the author
Allan Hepburn, author of Intrigue: Espionage and Culture and Enchanted Objects: Visual Art in Contemporary Fiction, is James McGill Professor of Twentieth-Century Literature at McGill University. He has edited four volumes of works by Elizabeth Bowen as well as a collection of essays about inheritance entitled Troubled Legacies, and another collection dealing with citizenship and human rights entitled Around 1945. He has published essays on collecting, belatedness, poverty, catastrophe, children, opera, and other topics. With Adam Piette and Lyndsey Stonebridge, he co-edits the Oxford Mid-Century Studies series.
Summary
This volume explores how religion influenced the works of mid-century writers and how authors used Christian ideas for social and political ends in the 1940s and 1950s.
Additional text
Hepburn's background research is voluminous and his insights are astute; there is much fascinating material to discover in the reading of this book. This is one to recommend to anyone whose interest in mid-twentieth-century Britain would bepiqued by a deeper understanding of its religious context.
