The Cambridge Companion to British Literature of the 1930s

Explores 1930s authors, genres, and contexts, giving fresh attention to well-known authors and bringing new writers and approaches to the fore.

James Smith (Edited by)

9781108703796, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 19 December 2019

266 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.3 cm, 0.43 kg

'Brilliantly conceived, constructed and executed, Smith's collection is an outstanding one.' Alistair Davies, Textual Practice

The 1930s is frequently seen as a unique moment in British literary history, a decade where writing was shaped by an intense series of political events, aesthetic debates, and emerging literary networks. Yet what is contained under the rubric of 1930s writing has been the subject of competing claims, and therefore this Companion offers the reader an incisive survey covering the decade's literature and its status in critical debates. Across the chapters, sustained attention is given to writers of growing scholarly interest, to pivotal authors of the period, such as Auden, Orwell, and Woolf, to the development of key literary forms and themes, and to the relationship between this literature and the decade's pressing social and political contexts. Through this, the reader will gain new insight into 1930s literary history, and an understanding of many of the critical debates that have marked the study of this unique literary era.

Introduction James Smith
1. Poetry Janet Montefiore
2. The literary novel Marina MacKay
3. Drama Claire Warden
4. Publishing and periodicals Peter Marks
5. The middlebrow and popular Isobel Maddison
6. Modernism Tyrus Miller
7. Communism and the working class John Connor
8. Empire Judy Suh
9. Travel Timothy Youngs
10. The regional and the rural Kristin Bluemel
11. The queer 1930s Glyn Salton-Cox
12. Remembering and imagining war Phyllis Lassner
13. Fascism and anti-fascism Mia Spiro
14. Fashioning the 1930s Benjamin Kohlmann.

Subject Areas: Literary companions, book reviews & guides [DSRC], Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers [DSK], Literary studies: from c 1900 - [DSBH]