The 1940s : a decade of modern British fiction

Author(s)

• Tew, Philip
• White, Glyn

Bibliographic Information

The 1940s : a decade of modern British fiction

edited by Philip Tew and Glyn White

（The decades series）

Bloomsbury Academic, 2023, c2022

• : pb

Other Title

The nineteen forties : a decade of modern British fiction

Note

Includes bibliographical references and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

How did social, cultural and political events concerning Britain during the 1940s reshape modern British fiction? During the Second World War and in its aftermath, British literature experienced and recorded drastic and decisive changes to old certainties. Moving from potential invasion and defeat to victory, the creation of the welfare state and a new Cold war threat, the pace of historical change seemed too rapid and monumental for writers to match. Consequently the 1940s were often side-lined in literary accounts as a dividing line between periods and styles. Drawing on more recent scholarship and research, this volume surveys and analyses this period's fascinating diversity, from novels of the Blitz and the Navy to the rise of important new voices with its contributors exploring the work of influential women, Commonwealth, exiled, genre, avant-garde and queer writers. A major critical re-evaluation of the intriguing decade, this book offers substantial chapters on Elizabeth Bowen, Graham Greene, and George Orwell as well as covering such writers as Jocelyn Brooke, Monica Dickens, James Hadley Chase, Patrick Hamilton, Gerald Kersh, Daphne Du Maurier, Mary Renault, Denton Welch and many others.

Table of Contents

Series Editors' Preface Contributors Acknowledgements Critical introduction: Reappraising the 1940s Philip Tew and Glyn White 1 Their finest hour?: A literary history of the 1940s Ashley Maher 2 British Blitz fiction of the 1940s: Another finest hour, myth or propaganda? Philip Tew 3 Genteel Bohemia: Capable women in women's fiction of the 1940s Deborah Philips 4 The ship and the nation: Royal Navy novels and the people's war 1939-45 Chris Hopkins 5 Feeling political: Elizabeth Bowen in the 1940s Karen Schaller 6 The life of animals: George Orwell's fiction in the 1940s Tamas Benyei 7 Masters and servants, class, and the colonies in Graham Greene's 1940s fiction Rebecca Dyer 8 Purposes of love: Rethinking intimacy in the 1940s Charlotte Charteris 9 No concession to 'English' taste? Refugees from National Socialism writing in Britain Andrea Hammel 10 Un-British: The transatlantic crime film connection Glyn White Timeline of Works Timeline of UK events Timeline of international events Biographies of writers Index

by "Nielsen BookData"

Details

• NCID: BD08048367
• ISBN:
  • 9781350280618
• Country Code: uk
• Title Language Code: eng
• Text Language Code: eng
• Place of Publication: London
• Pages/Volumes: xiii, 347 p.
• Size: 24 cm
• Classification:
  • DC23 : 823.91209
• Subject Headings:
  • LCSH : English fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism
  • LCSH : Literature and society -- Great Britain -- History -- 20th century
  • LCSH : Nineteen forties
• Parent Bibliography ID:
  • BB15927228