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How did social, cultural and political events in Britain during the 1950s shape modern British fiction? As Britain emerged from the shadow of war into the new decade of the 1950s, the seeds of profound social change were being sown. Exploring the full range of fiction in the 1950s, this volume surveys the ways in which these changes were reflected in British culture. Chapters cover the rise of the ''Angry Young Men'', an emerging youth culture and vivid new voices from immigrant and feminist writers. A major critical re-evaluation of the decade, the book covers such writers as Margery Allingham, Kingsley Amis, E. R. Braithwaite, Rodney Garland, Martyn Goff, Attia Hosain, George Lamming, Marghanita Laski, Doris Lessing, Colin MacInnes, Naomi Mitchison, V. S. Naipaul, Barbara Pym, Mary Renault, Sam Selvon, Alan Sillitoe, John Sommerfield, Muriel Spark, J. R. R. Tolkien, Angus Wilson and John Wyndham.
List of contents
Contributors
Series Editors' Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The 1950s: A Decade of Modern British Fiction
Nick Bentley, University of Keele, UK; Alice Ferrebe, Liverpool John Moores University, UK; and Nick Hubble, Brunel University London, UK1. 'The Choices of Master Samwise': Rethinking 1950s Fiction
Nick Hubble, Brunel University London, UK
2. Angry Young Men? A Product of Their Time
Matthew Crowley, University of Brighton, UK3. 'Mere bird-watching indeed': Feminist Anthropology and Fifties Female Fiction
Alice Ferrebe, Liverpool John Moores University, UK4. Re-Reading the 1950s Homosexual Novel
Martin Dines, Kingston University, UK5. A Vision of the Future: Race and Anti-Racism in 1950s British Fiction
Matti Roni, Brunel University of London, UK6. Whole Lotta Shakin Goin On: The Politics of Youth in 1950s Fiction
Nick Bentley, University of Keele, UK7. Detective Fiction and the Prose of Everyday Life: Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham, Ngaio Marsh and Gladys Mitchell in the 1950s
Nicholas Birns and Margaret Boe Birns8. Chance in the Canon: Uncertainty and the Literary Establishment of the Fifties
Sebastian Jenner, Brunel University of London, UK
Timeline of Works
Timeline of National Events
Timeline of International Events
Biographies of Major Writers
Index
About the author
Nick Bentley is Senior Lecturer in English at Keele University, UK.Alice Ferrebe is Subject Leader for English at Liverpool John Moores University, UK. She is the author of Masculinity in Male-Authored Fiction, 1950-2000 (2005).Nick Hubble is Professor of Modern and Contemporary English at Brunel University London, UK and the co-editor of The Science Fiction Handbook (2013), The 1970s (2014), The 1990s (2015), The 2000s (2015), The 1950s (2018), The 1930s (2021), The 2010s (2024) and London in Contemporary British Fiction (2016) all published by Bloomsbury.
