The 1920s - A Decade of Modern British Fiction

The particularity of 1920s British fiction has become obscured by an academic focus on modernism. This book takes a fresh approach to the decade by examining both canonical writers such as Virginia Woolf and E. M. Forster as well as less widely-studied writers such as A. A. Milne and Naomi Mitchison. From the aftermath of First World War to the Great Depression of 1929, and its political consequences, the 1920s were a decade marked by radical social change. Internationally, there was an ongoing shift of global power and nationally, Britain was adjusting to the aftermath of WWI, to no longer being the dominant imperial power in the world, and to the introduction of universal male suffrage and votes for women over 30, which was extended to those over 21 in 1928. This volume relates the British fiction of the decade to these contexts in order to reassess and explain trends of the period, such as war books, fantastic romance, literary modernism, and new expressions of gender and sexuality. A major critical re-evaluation of the decade, the book covers such writers as Agatha Christie, E. M. Forster, Ethel Mannin, Somerset Maugham, R. H. Mottram, D. H. Lawrence, Wyndham Lewis, A. A. Milne, Hope Mirrlees, Naomi Mitchison, Dorothy Richardson and Virginia Woolf, among others; illustrating how their key themes and concerns fit within the social and political circumstances of the decade.

Summary

A wide-ranging critical re-evaluation of British fiction of the 1920s, this book examines writers from Virginia Woolf and E. M. Forster to A. A. Milne and Naomi Mitchison.

Product details

• Authors: Tamas Benyei, Shene Boskani, Nick Hubble
• Assisted by: Tamás Bényei (Editor), Shene Boskani (Editor), Nick Hubble (Editor), Philip Tew (Editor), Leigh Wilson (Editor)
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 01.08.2025
• EAN: 9781350433434
• ISBN: 978-1-350-43343-4
• No. of pages: 344
• Series: The Decades Series
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > English linguistics / literary studies; LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 20th Century, United Kingdom, Great Britain, Literary studies: from c 1900 -, Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers, Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers, c 1919 to c 1939 (Inter-war period), Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000