TLW's English Novelist Historyscope |
By T.L. Winslow (TLW), the Historyscoper™ |
© Copyright by T.L. Winslow. All Rights Reserved. |
Original Pub. Date: May 11, 2013. Last Update: Mar. 28, 2024. |
Westerners are not only known as history ignoramuses, but double dumbass history ignoramuses when it comes to the history of English novels and English novelists. Since I'm the one-and-only Historyscoper (tm), let me quickly bring you up to speed before you dive into my Master Historyscope.
At first England was run by Celts, until the Romans conquered them and incorporated the province of Britannia in 43 C.E. Facing incursions by Goths et al., the Roman troops pulled out in the early 5th cent., allowing the Celts in hiding in W England and Scotland to try reclaiming their island, only to lose it to more invaders, the Germanic Angles, Saxons, and Jutes by 600. At first all pagan, they were Christianized and united under Saxon rule by the time of Alfred the Great, who died in 899. Meanwhile the Danish Vikings made inroads in NE England around their port of Jorvik, later called York. The Danes were pacified and incorporated into the Saxon realm by the time of French-speaking William I the Conqueror of Normandy, who captured the island from the Anglo-Saxons in 1066, and kicked them down like dogs, attempting to exterminate their language and culture, but in vain, because the downtrodden Anglo-Saxons still spoke their Germanic tongue in their huts. Their language, modified by French words developed into English.
On Oct. 25, 1400 English "Poet of the Dawn", "Father of English Poetry" Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400) dies in London (murdered by Archbishop Thomas Arundel's men?); first lit. figure buried in Westminster Abbey, where he lived in some apts., becoming the first in Poet's Corner; leaves the unfinished Rime of Sir Thopas, a burlesque ridiculing medieval romances, and The Canterbury Tales (17K lines, 40K words) (begun 1387), the first work raising dogtalk English to respectability as a lit. language, containing only 24 of 120 planned short stories from an ensemble of 30 characters (two each on the way to Canterbury from London, two on the way back, with the winner to get a free supper): the Knight, the Nun's Priest, the Pardoner, the Wife of Bath (5 husbands), the Nun, Lawyer, Student, Cook, Merchant, Squire, Physician, and Chaucer himself; "The rotten apple injures its neighbors"; "Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote/ The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote,/ And bathed every veyne in swich licour"; coins the term "mind's eye" in The Man of Law's Tale.
England invents its own Mystery Man Island Christ, complete with its own gospel? In 1485 Warwickshire-born Sir Thomas Malory (1405-71) ("the Father of Chivalry" - Sir Walter Scott) posth. pub. Le Morte d'Arthur (Le Morte Arthure) (The Book of King Arthur and His Noble Knights of the Round Table) (21 vols.); printed by William Caxton; the first book in poetic prose, and the first novel in the English language; written while rotting in prison on trumped-up charges after calling for reform during the Wars of the Roses; based on an anon. early 13th cent. La Mort le Roi Artu (1237); Malory puts bits of his own life in Arthur's tale; after Arthur is mortally wounded, Sir Bedivere throws Excalibur in the lake so that it will not see him dead, and "there came an arm and an hand [the Lady of the Lake] above the water and met it, and caught it, and so shook it thrice and brandished, and then vanished away the hand with the sword in the water"; Arthur then goes to the "Vale of Avilion (Avalon), to heal me of my grievous wound"; "Yet some men say in many parts of England that King Arthur is not dead, but taken by the will of our Lord Jesu into another place; and men say that he shall come again, and he shall win the holy cross"; "Here lies Arthur, once and future king" becomes the dream of all English kings, who want to claim that they're him, whether or not they are of Celtic heritage?; the Winchester Manuscript is unearthed in 1934 - there's a kind of hush all over the world, or, sentimental fool am I, but the melody keeps haunting me?
In 1516 London-born Roman Catholic humanist statesman Sir (St.) Thomas More (1478-1535) pub. Utopia (Gr. "nowhere"); Amerigo Vespucci crewmember Ralph Hythlodaye tells about his visit to an island where land is owned in common by the snobs (with plenty of slaves for the menial work), everybody has a job, and there is universal education and religious toleration, contrasting this perfect society with the hell-hole of England; it eventually spawns the English Poor Laws, and becomes the father of Communism?; influences Nostradamus?; since More wears an itchy-scratchy goat hair shirt for most of his life, judge it by the source?
In 1553 William Baldwin (1515-63) writes A Marvellous History Intituled Beware the Cat, which is pub. in 1570; the first English novel?
In 1578-17 Kent-born John Lyly (1554-1606) pub. Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit; the first English novel?; starts the florid trend of Euphuism, which is picked up by Elizabeth I in her writing and public speaking; incl. the saying "All is fair in love and war".
In 1597 Thomas Deloney (1543-1600) pub. Jack of Newbury; one of the first English novels to depict the life of the common people, clothiers (tailors). In 1600 he posth. pub. Thomas of Reading; about weavers.
In 1601 Thomas Dekker (1572-1632) pub. The Wonderfull Yeare. In 1609 he pub. The Gull's Hornbooke; satire of London life.
In 1611 Thomas Coryat (1576-1617) (who in 1608 returned from a 5-mo. tour of Europe, half of which he walked, bringing the custom of eating with a dinner fork or furcifer back to England from Italy, causing outrage at first as an insult to human dignity, as even the rich eat with their hands until late in this cent., at which time the idea of privacy is invented?, and also describes the principle of the umbrella) pub. Coryat's Crudities; vol. 1 of his travel stories; incl. the first pub. use of the term "ghetto" (It. "iron foundry") for the Jewish one in Venice located near an iron foundry (founded 1516); Coryat's Crambe, or His Coleworte Twice Sodden; vol. 2 of his travel stories.
In 1613 William Browne pub. Britannia's Pastorals.
In 1621 John Barclay (1582-1621) pub. Argenis in Paris.
In 1621 Lady Mary Wroth (1587-1653) pub. The Countess of Montgomery's Urania, the first prose romance by an English woman; the idea of a woman pub. a novel pisses-off men because they must remain silent to prove they're chaste?
In 1638 Hannington, Northamptonshire-born Bishop Frances Godwin (1562-1633) posth. pub. The Man in the Moone: or A Discourse of a Voyage Thither by Domingo Gonsales, the Speedy Messenger, the first known science fiction work.
In 1640 James Howell (1594-1666) pub. Familiar Letters, or Epistolae Ho-Elianae; the first epistolary novel in English?; Howell becomes the first to earn his living solely from writing in the English language.
In 1665 Richard Head pub. The English Rogue (picaresque).
In 1666 Elstow-born Congregationalist minister John Bunyan (1628-88) pub. his spiritual autobio. Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, or a Brief Relation of the Exceeding Mercy of God in Christ to his Poor Servant John Bunyan. On Feb. 18, 1678 he pub. The Pilgrim's Progress, Pt. 1 (first English novel?), which becomes a super-hit, translated into 200+ languages, never going out of print; uses the Hebrew term "Beulah" (married) to refer to the Promised Land, causing it to become popular as a girl's name - Beulah Ballbreaker? In 1684 he pub. The Pilgrim's Progress, Pt. 2, which causes the female name "Christian" (Gk. "anointed") to become a popular boy's name, since he's the hero?
In 1666 Mary Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (1623-73) pub. The Description of a New World Called the Blazing World; crude sci-fi about a new world where she is Empress Margaret I.
In 1667 Winestead, Hopderness, Yorkshire-born Andrew Marvell (1621-78) pub. Last Instructions to a Painter, a satire against corruption of the monarchy.
In 1688 Aphra Behn (1640-89), an English babe who grew up a slave in Dutch Guiana (Suriname) before being brought to England in 1658 and married to an English merchant of Dutch extraction pub. Oroonoko; or the Royal Slave in London, the adventures of an African prince she met while a slave in Suriname, becoming one of the first novels in English; in 1695 a theatrical adaptation by Thomas Southerne debuts, becoming a hit and causing sales of the novel to skyrocket, running in Britain until the 1740s followed by North Am. in the latter 1700s - once you go black you never go back?
In 1692 Bardsey, West Yorkshire-born William Congreve (1670-1729) pub. Incognita; Aurelian and Hippolito arrive in Florence just in time for a masquerade, which goes bad. He later switches to plays and becomes "the Moliere of England".
In 1693 Virtue Rewarded, or the Irish Princess is pub. by anon., becoming the first Anglo-Irish novel?
In 1704 Dublin-born Anglo-Irish writer Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) pub. A Tale of a Tub; his first major work, pub. anon.; satire about three brothers, each representing a major branch of Christianity; despite getting his cousin Thomas to claim authorship, it damages his prospects in the Church of England; "Seamen have a custom, when they meet a whale, to fling him out an empty tub by way of amusement, to divert him from laying violent hands upon the ship"; "There are certain common privileges of a writer, the benefit whereof, I hope, there will be no reason to doubt; particularly, that where I am not understood, it shall be concluded, that something very useful and profound is couched underneath; and again, that whatever word or sentence is printed in a different character, shall be judged to contain something extraordinary either or wit of sublime"; "Bread is the staff of life"; "Books, the children of the brain"; "As boys do sparrows, with flinging salt upon their tails"; "He made it a part of his religion never to say grace to his meat"; "It is a maxim, that those to whom everybody allows the second place have an undoubted title to the first." In 1726 he pub. Gulliver's Travels (Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts, By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships); Lemuel Gulliver visits the countries of Lilliput and Blefuscu (6-in. tall people, Lilliput's capital city Mildendo is surrounded by a 2.5-ft. wall), Brobdingnag (60-ft. tall giants), Laputa (flying island of scientific quacks), Glubdubdrib (sorcerers), Luggnag (island where the Stuldbrugs live forever while suffering the infirmities of old age), the land of the Houyhnhnms, where intelligent horses rule over savage humanoid Yahoos, and Balnibarbi (failed inventors and projectors, capital Lagado); a satire of all things English, or just English modernism?; "If I had to make a list of six books which were to be preserved when all others were destroyed, I would certainly put 'Gulliver's Travels' among them" (George Orwell); "He [the emperor of Lilliput] is taller by almost the breadth of my nail, than any of his court, which alone is enough to strike an awe into the beholders"; "I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives [Brobdingnag] to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth"; "He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put in vials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement summers [Laputa]"; "I said the thing which was not. (For they have no word in their language to express lying or falsehood.) [Houyhnhnms]"; "Poor Nations are hungry, and rich Nations are proud, and Pride and Hunger will ever be at Variance [Houyhnhnms]"; "And he gave it for his opinion, that whosoever could make two ears of corn or two blades of grass to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together."
In 1706 London-born Daniel Defoe (De Foe) (1659-1731) pub. A Relation of the Apparition of Mrs. Veal. In 1719 he pub. The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe; the first English novel?; based on the life of Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk (1676-1721); spends 24 years on a desert island, where he is saved from cannibals by Friday on guess what day, and makes an umbrella out of skins; how white Euros can achieve salvation via work, the conquering of loneliness, and recognition of the inequality of human relations; "The aptest treatise on natural education" (Jean-Jacques Rousseau). In 1720 Defoe pub. Captain Singleton, Memoirs of a Cavalier. In 1722 he pub. The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders (picaresque); also The History and Remarkable Life of the Truly Honorable Colonel Jack, Another Robinson Crusoe. In 1723 he pub. The Highland Rogue; Or, The Memorable Actions of the Celebrated Robert Mac-gregor, Commonly Called Rob-Roy; about Rob Roy (1671-1734), making him a legend, and causing George I to pardon him in 1727 just before he is scheduled to be transported to the colonies. In 1724 he pub. Roxana, or the Fortunate Mistress. In 1726 he pub. The Four Years Voyages of Captain George Roberts.
In 1709 Newcastle upon Tyne-born Mary Astell (1666-1731) ("the first English feminist") pub. Bart'lemy Fair, or An Enquiry after Wit (London).
In 1709 Jersey-born Delarivier (Delariviere) (de la Riviere) "Delia" "Mary" Manley (1663-1724) pub. The New Atalantis; satire of almost all the prominent Whigs, which gets her sued.
In 1710 London-born Henry Carey (1687-1743) pub. Records of Love; serialized romance for female readers.
In 1720 London publisher John Watts pub. A Select Collection of Novels in Four Volumes, Written by the Most Celebrated Authors in Several Languages; incl. "Upon the Origin of Romances" by Huet.
In 1722 Richard Boyle (1694-1753) (tr.) pub. The Travels and Adventures of Three Princes of Serendip; the ever-lucky princes from Ceylon (Sri Lanka).
In 1725 English brain woman Eliza Haywood (Fowler) (1693-1756) ("Juno of Majestic Size") pub. Memoirs of a Certain Island Adjacent to Utopia. In 1727 she pub. The Court of Carmania. In 1744 she begins pub. The Female Spectator, the first women's periodical to be edited by a woman; predictably, all her stuff is icily received by the male establishment, Alexander Pope calling her a "shameless scribbler", and Jonathan Swift calling her a "stupid, infamous, scribbling woman".
In 1733 Irish writer Samuel Madden (1686-1765) pub. Memoirs of the Twentieth Century; a guardian angel gives the author a series of letters from English ambassadors in several countries to the British Lord High Treasurer, along with replies from the British foreign office, all from the future (1997-1998), in the time of George VI; the first time travel novel?; suppressed by Sir Robert Walpole.
In 1740 Mackworth, Derbyshire-born Samuel Richardson (1689-1761) pub. Pamela; Or, Virtue Rewarded; 15-y.-o. Pamela Andrews loses her mother, and is sexually harassed by landlord Mr. B., who first tries to seduce her, then rape her, and finally proposes honorable marriage; a bestseller. In 1747 he pub. Clarissa; Or, The History of a Young Lady.
In 1741 Glastonbury, Somersetshire-born Henry Fielding (1707-54) pub. The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews and of His Friend Mr. Abraham Adams: An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews; an anon. parody of Samuel Richardson's 1740 "Pamela", introducing the omniscient narrator - I have a Ph.d - a pretty huge d? In 1742 he pub. Abraham Adams. In 1743 he pub. Miscellanies (3 vols.); incl. The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great, A Journey from This World to the Next. In 1748 he becomes a justice of the peace for Westminster, mainly concerned with ruffianism, which furnishes material for his novels. In 1749 he pub. The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling; the model for the modern English novel; Squire Alworthy is really Tom's uncle? In 1751 he pub. Amelia.
In Nov. 1748-Feb. 1749 John Cleland (1709-89) pub. Fanny Hill, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, the first work of pornography in English; he writes it in Fleet Prison (debtor's priz); it gets him arrested in Nov. 1749, at which time he disavows the novel, causing pirate eds. to flourish, incl. one with a male rump-ranging episode, fueling rumors of his homosexuality, esp. as he never marries.
In 1748 Tobias Smollett (1721-71) pub. The Adventures of Roderick Random (picaresque). In 1751 he pub. The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle - picklesque? In 1753 he pub. The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom (picaresque). In 1760 he pub. The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves (picaresque).
In 1750 Charlotte Ramsay Lennox (1720-1804) pub. The Life of Harriet Stuart. In 1752 she pub. The Female Quixote. In 1758 she pub. The History of Henrietta. In 1762 she pub. The History of Harriot and Sophia. In 1790 she pub. Euphemia.
In 1759 Clonmel, County Tipperary, Ireland-born, Yorkshire-raised Laurence Sterne (1713-68) pub. A Political Romance (satire); also The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, vols. 1-2; a life story with mucho detours; wealthy father Walter; Uncle Toby. who spends his time reconstructing Marlborough's campaigns in his garden; Widow Waldman, who vainly makes advances on Toby; the first postmodern (unreadable?) novel, written before there was a modern?; makes him an internat. star. In 1767 he pub. Tristram Shandy, Vols. 3-4.
In 1760 Ballymahon, County Longford, Ireland-born hack writer Oliver Goldsmith (1730-74) pub. The Citizen of the World; letters by a Chinese traveler describing London; pub. anon., his authorship leaks and he gains entrance into the ranks of the London literati. In 1764 he pub. The Traveller. In 1766 he pub. The Vicar of Wakefield; pub. is arranged hastily by his friend Dr. Samuel Johnson to save him from debtor's prison.
In 1761 Frances Sheridan (1724-66) pub. Memoirs of Miss Sidney Bidulph; a clone of Samuel Richardson's 1740 "Pamela"? In 1763 he pub. The Discovery. In 1767 he posth. pub. The History of Nourjahad; also Continuation of the Memoirs.
In 1764 London-born Horace (Horatio) Walpole (1717-97) (son of Robert Walpole) pub. the Gothic novel The Castle of Otranto, founding the field of Gothic (supernatural) romance, set in a ruined haunted Gothic castle or abbey filled with secret passages and stairways.
In 1771 Edinburgh-born Henry Mackenzie (1745-1831) ("the Addison of the North") pub. his first novel The Man of Feeling; pub. anon., it becomes a hit, after which he has to fight to prove he wrote it. In 1773 he pub. The Man of the World; also The Prince of Tunis. In 1777 he pub. Julia de Rubigne.
In 1777 Ipswitch-born Clara Reeve (1729-1807) pub. the Gothic romance The Champion of Virtue (The Old English Baron); competition for Horace Walpole's "Castle of Otranto"; influences Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein".
In 1778 King's Lynn, Norfolk-born Frances "Fanny" Burney (1752-1840) pub. Evelina, or A Young Lady's Entrance into the World; originates the novel of domestic life. In 1782 she pub. Cecilia, or Memoirs of an Heiress. In 1814 she pub. The Wanderer, or Female Difficulties.
In 1780 London-born Thomas Holcroft (1745-1809) pub. Alwayn; autobio. story of a strolling comedian. In 1792 he pub. Anna St. Ives; the first British Jacobin novel.
In 1782 Helen Maria Williams (1761-1827) pub. her first novel Edwin and Eltruda: A Legendary Tale.
In 1783-9 London-born Thomas Day (1748-89) pub. The History of Sandford and Merton (3 vols.), popular children's books emphasizing Rousseau's educational ideals. In 1788 he pub. History of Little Jack, a Foundling; another children's book.
In 1789 Cambridge-born dramatist Richard Cumberland (1732-1811) pub. Arundel.
In 1789 London-born Gothic novelist Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823) pub. her first novel The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne - not in my house? In 1790 she pub. A Sicilian Romance. In 1792 she pub. The Romance of the Forest.
In 1792 Bristol-born religious writer Hannah More (1745-1833) pub. Village Politics, by Will Chip; disses Tom Paine and the godless French Rev.; a big hit, causing her to begin producing 30-40 Cheap Repository Tracts along with her sisters for the next three years, teaching reverence for religion, the British constitution and the gentry, and hatred for the French, with 2M copies circulated in 1 year, the most famous being The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain; the farmers get pissed-off at her for trying to teach their laborers to read?
In 1794 Wisbech, Cambridgeshire-born William Godwin (1756-1836), husband of Mary Wollstonecraft and father of Mary Shelley pub. the novel Things as They Are; or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams (3 vols.), based on his bestseller "Political Justice" (1793), becoming the first thriller and mystery novel; a servant finds out the secret of his master Falkland and is forced to flee, and gets run over by the criminal justice system; first novel to develop the plot backwards, making fans of Charles Dickens and Edgar Allan Poe.
In 1800 Anglo-Irish Gothic novelist Maria Edgeworth (1767-1849) pub. her first novel Castle Rackrent, becoming the first historical novel, the first regional novel in England, the first Anglo-Irishnovel, the first Big House novel, the first saga novel, and the first to use the device of an unreliable narrator. In 1817 she pub. Ormond.
In 1800 Belfast, Ireland-born Elizabeth Hamilton (1756-1816) pub. Memoirs of Modern Philosophers; satirical novel. In 1808 she pub. The Cottagers of Glenburnie.
In 1802 Edinburgh-born Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) (first major historical novelist) pub. Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. In 1805 he pub. The Lay of the Last Minstrel (Romantic verse novel); "The way was long, the wind was cold,/ The Minstrel was infirm and old". In 1810 he pub. The Lady of the Lake (Romantic verse novel); AKA Fairy Vivienne, Vivien, or Nemue, who abducted infant Lancelot and kept him on an island. In 1814 he pub. Waverly; his first Romantic historical novel (last 1825); written while living at 39 Castle St. in Edinburgh. In 1815 he pub. Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer; pub. anon.; big hit about the supernatural; Dandie Dinmont has six Dandie Dinmont terriers (a breed dating back to the 17th cent.). In 1817 he pub. Rob Roy; about Scottish hero Robert Roy MacGregor (1671-1734), adding to his fame; Glasgow Judge Bailie Nicol Jarvie, who comes to the aid of Frank Obaldistone. In 1818 he pub. Heart of Midlothian; a medieval prison in Canongate, Edinburgh. In 1819 he pub. The Bride of Lammermoor; the ruins of Wolf's Crag and Ravenswood are located on the coast of Berwickshire in Fast Castle 6 mi. NW of Eyemouth, and Cockburnspath Fortress 10 mi. NW of Eyemouth. In 1820 he pub. Ivanhoe; 13th cent. knights incl. Cedric the Saxon; Rebecca and Lady Rowena; coins the term "freelance"; makes the name Cedric (OE "war leader") popular in Britain; Mark Twain later blames it for starting the U.S. Civil War by glorifying outmoded ideals of rank and privilege. In 1821 he pub. Kenilworth; contains the tale of Sir Walter Raleigh throwing his cloak over a mud puddle to let Queen Elizabeth I pass, swearing that he will never brush it again "as long as it is in my possession", followed by the queen telling him to go to her wardrobe keeper with an order to give him "a suit, and that of the newest cut"; the fiction was invented by historian Thomas Fuller (1608-61). In 1823 he pub. Quentin Durward; a Scottish Guard archer in the service of Louis XI of France. In 1824 he pub. Redgauntlet: A Tale of the Eighteenth Century (3 vols.); original title "Herries"; a Jacobite rising in July-Aug. 1765. In 1825 he pub. The Talisman; his last Romantic historical novel (first 1814); Saladin in disguise cures Richard I Lionheart with a you know what. In 1826 he pub. Woodstock; Or, The Cavalier: A Tale of the Year 1651; Charles II's escape after the 1651 Battle of Worcester with help from Woodstock Park ranger Sir Henry Lee - 143 years to the American Woodstock? In 1828 he pub. The Fair Maid of Perth. In 1829 he pub. Anne of Geierstein; or, The Maiden of the Mist.
In 1803 Ellis Wynn o Lasynys (1671-1734) pub. Visions of the Sleeping Bard (Gweledigaetheu y Bardd Cwsc); satire on worldly follies; greatest Welsh prose work of modern times?
In 1803 Durham-born Jane Porter (1776-1850) pub. Thaddeus of Warsaw; the 1790s Polish independence struggle; praised by Thaddeus Kosciusko. In 1810 she pub. The Scottish Chiefs; about Sir William Wallace (1272-1305); banned by Napoleon. In 1826 she and Anna Maria Porter (1780-1832) pub. Tales Round a Winter Hearth.
In 1807 Dublin-born Gothic novelist Charles Robert Maturin (1782-1824) (who pub. under the alias Dennis Jasper Murphy) pub. his first novel The Fatal Revenge; or The Family of Montorio. In 1807 he pub. The Wild Irish Boy. In 1813 he pub. The Milesian Chief. In 1820 he pub. Melmoth the Wanderer; the sequel Melmoth Reconciled to the Church is written by Honore de Balzac in tribute after his death.
In 1811 Steventon-born Jane Austen (1775-1817) pub. Sense and Sensibility; set in Sussex in 1792-7; sisters Elinor Dashwood (sense) and Marianne Dashwood (sensibility); "The family of Dashwood had long been settled in Sussex." In 1813 she pub. Pride and Prejudice (original title "First Impressions"); the Bennet sisters Jane, Mary, Lydia, Kitty and Elizabeth (prejudice); Mr. Darcy (pride); Bingley; Lady Catherine De Bourgh; "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." (first sentence) In 1814 she pub. Mansfield Park; the different value systems of London and the country; Fanny Price, the Bertram and Crawford families, Aunt Norris. In 1816 she pub. Emma; comic novel about "handsome, clever and rich" Emma Woodhouse, who turns matchmaker with 17-y.-o. Harriet Smith ("a heroine whom no one but myself will much like") and Frank Churchill; her last novel pub. during her life; "Half the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other." In 1818 she posth. pub. Northanger Abbey; the first novel she wrote, about Catherine Morland, who goes to Bath; Persuasion; her last completed novel; the first novels pub. under her real name, both set in Bath, where she lived in 1801-5.
On Apr. 10, 1815 Mt. Tambora on Sumbawa Island in Indonesia erupts with a force 100x times Mt. St. Helens (most powerful recorded volcanic explosion in history), killing 90K, mostly from starvation after it destroys the crops; it affects the weather as far away as England, blackening skies around the globe and blocking sunlight for three years, triggering a blizzard in Upstate New York in June 1816 and killer frosts in New England in July-Aug. 1816, making 1816 "the year without a summer", causing a new genre of Gothic fiction incl. Frankenstein and human vampires to emerge?
In 1816 Southgate, London-born James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784-1859) pub. The Story of Rimini; 13th cent. adulteress Francesca da Rimini. In 1834 he pub. London Journal.
In 1816 Lady Caroline Lamb (1785-1828) pub. Glenarvon, which describes her former lover Lord Byron (1788-1824), getting her blackballed from Almack's. In 1822 she pub. Graham Hamilton. In 1823 she pub. Ada Reis.
In 1816 Weymouth, Dorset-born poet Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866) pub. Headlong Hall. In 1818 he pub. Nightmare Abbey, a Gothic satire of the Romantic movement; also Rhododaphne. In 1822 he pub. Maid Marian. In 1829 he pub. The Misfortunes of Elphin. In 1831 he pub. Crotchet Castle. In 1860 he pub. his last novel Gryll Grange.
In 1818 Edinburgh-born Susan Edmonstoune Ferrier (1782-1854) (friend of Sir Walter Scott, who works with her daddy James Ferrier in the Court of Session) pub. her first novel Marriage. In 1824 she pub. The Inheritance. In 1831 she pub. Destiny.
On Jan. 1, 1818 Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (nee Godwin) (1797-1851) anon. pub. Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (3 vols.); Gothic romance novel about a mad scientist who makes a corpse live again via electricity; she got the idea while in a trance based on the writings of alchemists about creating a homunculus in a test tube, "a pale student of the unhallowed arts [grave-robbing] kneeling beside the thing he had put together"; "I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel"; "I beheld the wrath of the miserable monster whom I had created"; "I curse (although I curse myself) the hands that formed you" - could it have really been based on her hubby Percy's anatomy?
In 1820 Irvine, Ayrshire-born John Galt (1779-1839) (first English political novelist) pub. The Earthquake (3 vols.); also Glenfell. In 1821 he pub. Annals of the Parish; also The Ayrshire Legatees. In 1822 he pub. The Provost; also The Steam-Boat. In 1823 he pub. The Entail (3 vols.); also The Gathering of the West; also Ringan Gilhaize (3 vols.); also The Spaewife (3 vols.). In 1824 he pub. Rothelan: A Romance of the English Histories (3 vols.); also The Bachelor's Wife. In 1825 he pub. The Omen. In 1826 he pub. The Last of the Lairds. In 1830 he pub. Lawrie Todd; also Southennan (3 vols.). In 1831 he pub. Bogle Corbet, or The Emigrants (3 vols.); also The Lives of the Players. In 1832 he pub. The Member; also The Radical; also Stanley Buxton (3 vols.). In 1833 he pub. Eben Erskine, or The Traveller (3 vols.); also The Ouranoulagos, or The Celestial Volume; also The Stolen Child; also Stories of the Study (3 vols.). In 1834 he pub. A Contribution to the Greenock Calamity Fund. In 1835 he pub. Efforts by an Invalid.
In 1822 Dumfriesshire, Scotland-born Allan Cunningham (1784-1842) pub. The King of the Peak; the elopment of Dorothy Vernon (daughter of Sir George Vernon) with John Manners of Haddon Hall.
In 1824-32 Mary Russell Mitford (1787-1855) pub. Our Village. In 1834 she pub. Belford Regis. In 1854 she pub. Atherton.
In 1824 Dublin-born poet Thomas Moore (1779-1852) pub. Memoirs of Captain Rock. In 1827 he pub. The Epicurean.
In 1824 James Morier pub. Haji Baba (2 vols.) (1824, 1828). In 1834 he pub. Ayesha the Maid of Kars.
In 1824-37 Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864) pub. Imaginary Conversations; big hit with critics, big bust with the public and with his enemies, who sue him for libel.
In 1825-6 Kilkenny, Ireland-born Michael Banim (1796-1874) abd John Banim (1798-1842) pub. Tales of the O'Hara Family (6 vols.); the lot of poverty-stricken Irish peasants. In 1828 John Banim pub. The Croppy: A Tale of 1798. In 1830 Michael Banim pub. The Denounced; or the Last Baron of Crana. In 1830 Michael Banim pub. The Smuggler. In 1842 Michael Banim pub. Father Connell; an Irish country priest. In 1852 Michael Banim pub. Clough Fionn. In 1864 Michael Banim pub. The Town of the Cascades; temperance novel.
In 1825 County Down, Ireland-born William Hamilton Maxwell (1792-1850) pub. his first novel O'Hara; pioneers the school of rollicking military fiction, although it's a flop?
In 1826 London-born Jewish-descent Anglican Benjamin Disraeli (1804-81) (originally D'Israeli) pub. his first novel Vivian Grey. In 1831 he pub. The Young Duke. In 1832 he pub. Contarini Fleming (autobio. novel). In 1833 he pub. Alroy. In 1834 he pub. The Infernal Marriage. In 1837 he pub. Henrietta Temple: A Love Story; also Venetia. In 1844 he pub. Coningsby. In 1845 he pub. Sybil, or The Two Nations. In 1847 he pub. Tancred. In 1880 he pub. Endymion.
In 1828 Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton (1803-73) pub. Pelham, or, Adventures of a Gentleman; keeps gossips guessing which real dandies are being described, making him a celeb. In 1829 he pub. Devereux. In 1830 he pub. Paul Clifford; becomes infamous for its opening line "It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents...", later made famous by Snoopy and a U.S. writing contest. In 1832 he pub. Eugene Aram. In 1833 he pub. Godolphin; bestseller. In 1834 he pub. The Last Days of Pompeii; inspired by Karl Briullov's painting; The Pilgrims of the Rhine. In 1835 he pub. Rienzi. In 1842 he pub. Zanoni. In 1848 he pub. Harold: Last of the Saxon Kings. In 1857 he pub. The Haunted and the Haunters (The House and the Brain). In 1870 he pub. Vril: The Power of the Coming Race; a subterranean humanoid race get mental powers from the Vril energy fluid; inspires science fiction and Nazi mysticism?; later used in the name of the beef extract Bovril.
In 1829 Limerick-born Gerald Griffin (1803-40) pub. The Collegians; middle-class Irish.
In 1830 London-born Theodore Edward Hook (1788-1841) pub. Maxwell. In 1833 he pub. Love and Pride. In 1836 he pub. Gilbert Gurney. In 1837 he pub. Jack Brag. In 1838 he pub. Gurney Married. In 1842 he pub. Peregrine Bunce.
In 1832 Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna (1790-1846) pub. her first novel Combination. In 1841 she pub. Conformity; Falsehood and Truth; Helen Fleetwood: Tales of the Factories. In 1847 she pub. The System.
In 1832 Heckfield, Hampshire-born Frances Milton "Fanny" Trollope (1780-1863) pub. The Refugee in America. In 1836 she pub. The Adventures of Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw. In 1840 she pub. Michael Armstrong: Factory Boy; first British industrial novel; first woman to issue her novels in monthly parts.
In Dec. 1833 Portsea, Portsmouth-born Charles John Huffam Dickens (1812-70) pub. his first fictional piece Mr. Minns and His Cousin (A Dinner at Poplar Walk) in Old Monthly Mag., going on to pub. Sketches by Boz (short stories) in Old Monthly Mag. and Morning Chronicle. In 1836 he pub. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (The Pickwick Papers) (serialized in 1837); begins as lit. commentary for humorous drawings by Robert Seymour at Chapman and Hall, bringing him instant fame and going internat., with 400K copies sold per mo.; Mr. Samuel Pickwick, pres. of the Pickwick Club; happy-go-lucky medical students Bob Sawyer and Ben Allen. In 1837-9 he pub. Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress, with illustrations by George Cruikshank; Noah Claypole, Mr. Brownlow, 4'6" Artful Dodger Jack Dawkins; workhouse boss (constabular beadle) Mr. Bumble ("the law is a ass"), who dishes out oatmeal, and to whom Oliver issues the immortal soundbyte: "Please, sir, I want some more"; dog-kicking Bill Sykes, his mean bulldog Bull's-Eye and his bird Nancy; his boss, Jewish pickpocket gang king Fagin (Gael. "little ardent one") is hanged at the end, which draws such an angry reaction from Londoners that he tones it down in future eds.; Dicken's best friend is Bob Fagin; Oliver is adopted by Mr. Brownlow and ends up well-fed and happy. In 1837-42 Dickens pub. five of the 14 bestselling books in the U.S., capturing the illiterate and literate markets. In 1838-9 he pub. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby; young Nicholas must support his mother and sister after his father dies while dealing with Uncle Ralph, who thinks he's a bum because he goes around rescuing victims of improbable cruelty; Wackford Squeers of Dotheboys Hall. In 1840-1 he pub. The Old Curiosity Shop; Little Nell and her grandfather, whose London curiosity shop is seized for debt by repulsive dwarf Quilp, causing them to flee and wander through the countryside, having many adventures while he pursues them, finally settling in a quiet village; people line up on the New York City docks to learn the fate of Little Nell; "It would take a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing" (Oscar Wilde). In 1841 he pub. Barnaby Rudge; his first historical novel, inspired by Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), about the 1780 Gordon Riots in London, local idiot Rudge and his pet raven Grip at the Maypole Inn in Chigwell, proprietor John Willet, father of Joe Willet, lover of Dolly Varden, daughter of locksmith Gabriel Varden; in 1753 Rudge's daddy Rudge Sr. murdered Reuben Haredale of the Warren and his gardener, switched clothes with the latter and split, then shows up during the Gordon Riots; Edgar Allan Poe gets the idea for "The Raven" from Grip. In 1843-4 he pub. Martin Chuzzlewit; Mrs. Gamp, Seth Pecksniff, Tom Pinch. On Dec. 19, 1843 (Tues.) Dickens pub. A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas; illustrated by John Leech; 28K words, 80 pages; written in six weeks to pay off his debts while finishing "Martin Chuzzlewit", it sells 6K copies in its first week, causing him to write four more "Christmas books", creating a genre; "a Ghostly little book... which shall not put my readers out of humour... with the season"; mean old miser Ebenezer Scrooge, his downtrodden employee Bob Cratchit and his children Tiny Tim, Peter, Martha, Belinda and two nonames, his business partner Jacob Marley, his nephew Fred, his old employer Fezziwig;, Dick Wilkins, laundress Mrs. Dilbert, undertaker's asst. Sparsit, fence Old Joe Hoggs, Caroline and her hubby; begins: "Marley was dead, to begin with"; ends: "And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!"; popularizes the phrase "Merry Christmas; "Bah! Humbug!" Scrooge becomes a synonym for a miser; has "staves" instead of chapters, since musical notation is written on five staves; "Stave I: Marley's Ghost"; "Stave II: The First of the Three Spirits" (Ghost of Christmas Past); "Stave III: The Second of the Three Spirits" (Ghost of Christmas Present); "Stave IV: The Last of the Spirits" (Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come); "Stave V: The End of It"; Dickens reads it at Birmingham Town Hall on Dec. 27, 1852 in his first-ever public reading - moral: go out and spend big bucks every Christmas? In 1844 he pub. The Chimes. In 1846 he pub. The Cricket on the Hearth; divided into 3 "chirps"; Dombey and Son (1846-8); Paul Dombey, "sole representative". In 1849-50 he pub. his autobio. novel David Copperfield; original title "Mag's Diversions"; Dickens' most popular work, and personal favorite; Leo Tolstoy becomes a big fan; David is born at midnight on a Fri. 3 mo. after his father dies, and his mother Clara, who employs loving nurse Clara Peggoty marries mean Mr. Murdstone (brother of icy Jane Murdstone), who abuses David, breaking his mother's heart enough to kill her, then pulls David out of school and sends him to a grim London blacking factory, where he lodges with ever-overspending good-hearted landlord Wilkins Micawber ("something will turn up") until he is sent to debtors' prison, then runs away, is adopted by great-aunt Betsey Trotwood of Dover (who hates men, and keeps donkeys on her lawn) and her doting hubby Mr. Dick, who send him to school in Canterbury, after which when he grows up he works as a clerk for lawyer Spendlow, whose daughter Dora he marries in Ch. 43, then loses to sickness, after which he marries childhood sweetheart Agnes Wickfield, unattainable dream babe of 'umble greasy-palmed law clerk Uriah Heep (who blackmails lawyer Wickfield and is exposed by Micawber) as his 2nd wife in Ch. 62, realizing his dream of being a writer; Mr. Dick; Barkis; Em'ly Peggoty; harp-playing powder keg Miss Rosa Dartle ("I only ask for information") and her cad lover James Steerforth, who disfigured her lip with a hammer; "I Am Born" (ch. 1); "To begin my life at the very beginning, I was a posthumous child"; coins the phrase "old as the hills". In 1852 he pub. Bleak House (1852-3); the Court of Chancery case of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce; Mr. John Jarndyce of Bleak House and his three wards, incl. the secret illegitimate daughter of Lady Honoria Dedlock, who is blackmailed by her husband Sir Leicester Dedlock's lawyer Josiah Tulkinghorne, leading to both of their deaths; Esther Summerson, Ada Clare, Richard Carstone, Capt. James Hawdon; Mrs. Jellyby, who neglects her family to aid the Borrioboola-Gha on the left bank of the Niger River; the first English novel to feature a detective, Inspector Bucket. In 1854 he pub. Hard Times; industrialist Thomas Gradgrind, who is only interested in Facts, and whose inadequacies result in the failure of his two children. In 1855-7 he pub. Little Dorritt (900 pages); his most popular novel; 1820s seamstress Little Amy Dorritt (based on his ex-girlfriend Maria Beadnell) helps her dad escape Marshalsea Prison in Southwark, London after 20 years (where Dickens' dad was sent in 1824 for a debt of 40 pounds and 10 shillings) after getting her friend Arthur Clemain to settle the debt for 20 pounds; "It is gone now, and the world is none the worse without it"; Barnacle Junior of the Circumlocution Office ("Upon my soul, you mustn't come into the place saying you want to know, you know"). In 1859 he pub. A Tale of Two Cities; 45 chapters about the French Rev. and the railroading and execution of innocents, incl. lookalikes Charles Darnay (Evremonde) (husband of Lucie) and Sydney Carton (who loves Lucie but can't have her, and saves him from the guillotine by taking his place); evil Marquis St. Evremonde, Ernest Defarge, and evil Madame Therese Defarge, who is killed by Miss Pross; Lucie's father Dr. Alexander Manette, who is rescued from 105 North Tower when the Bastille falls, and almost saves Darnay from the Rev. Tribunal until an old anti-Evremonde letter is dug up and used; Book 1: Recalled to Life; Book 2: The Golden Thread; Book 3: The Track of a Storm; "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spirit of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period..."; "It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done" (Carlton); Jerry Cruncher the resurrection man; the Golden Arm sign. In 1860-1 he pub. Great Expectations; illustrations by Marcus Stone; first pub. in All the Year Round from Dec. 1, 1859-Aug. 3, 1860; Philip Pirrip (Pip) is told he has great you know whats; Miss Havisham, Abel Magwitch, Estella, blacksmith Joe Gargery, Mr. Jaggers, Wemmick, actor Mr. Wopsle, Biddy. In 1864-5 he pub. his last novel Our Mutual Friend; illustrations by Marcus Stone: "The question [with Mr. Podsnap] about everything was, would it bring a blush into the cheek of the young person [Podsnap's daughter Georgiana]" (Ch. 11); dedicated to Sir James Emerson Tennent "as a memorial of friendship". Dickens dies on June 9, 1870, leaving 38 major works and 10K pub. letters, along with the unfinished novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood, stopping in the middle of Ch. 23 "The Dawn Again" (Ch. 1 is "The Dawn"); about Edwin Drood, whose opium-addicted choirmaster uncle John Jasper is in love with his pupil Rosa Bud, Drood's fiance, after which Drood is found missing, and mutual admirer Neville Landless (who arrived from Ceylon with his twin sister Helena) is suspected, although Jasper really did it?; on June 14 he is buried in Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey.
In 1833 Isle of Bute-born John Sterling (1806-44) pub. Arthur Coningsby.
In 1834 Scottish agnostic Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) moves to Cheyne Row, Chelsea, London, becoming known as "the Sage of Chelsea", gathering a lit. circle incl. John Stuart Mill, John Sterling, Leigh Hunt, and Harriet Martineau.
In 1834 Normanston, Suffolk-born John Frederick Denison Maurice (1805-72) (founder of Christian Socialism) pub. his first novel Eustace Conway, or the Brother and Sister.
In 1834 William Harrison Ainsworth (1805-82) pub. his first novel Rookwood. In 1837 he pub. The Admirable Crichton; an admirable butler shipwrecked on an island. In 1839 he pub. Jack Sheppard; London highwayman Jack Sheppard (1702-24). In 1841 he pub. Windsor Castle. In 1870 he pub. An Open Verdict. In 1875 he pub. The Goldsmith's Wife. In 1876 he pub. The Leaguer of Lathom; also Chetwynd Calverley.
In 1834 retired British navy capt. Frederick Marryat (1792-1848) pub. Peter Simple, about a young British midshipman during the Napoleonic Wars. In 1836 he pub. the autobio. novel Mr. Midshipman Easy. In 1847 he pub. The Children of the New Forest, a children's novel about the four Beverly orphans, who hide from the Roundheads.
In 1837 Sara Coleridge (1802-52) (daughter of Samuel Taylor Coleridge) pub. Phantasmion, a Fairy Tale; spins some good yarns.
In 1837 Bristol-born poet Robert Southey (1774-1843) pub. The Doctor; popularizes the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
In 1838 Durham-born sporting novelist Robert Smith Surtees (1803-64) pub. Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities; illustrated by "Phiz"; a sporting-vulgarity-spitting cockney grocer; the basis of Dickens' "Pickwick Papers". In 1853 he pub. Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour. In 1858 he pub. Ask Mamma. In 1860 he pub. Plain or Ringlets? In 1865 he posth. pub. Mr. Facey Romford's Hounds.
In 1839 Dublin-born Charles James Lever (1806-72) pub. The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer; makes him an instant success. In 1840 he pub. (1806-72), Con Cregan. In 1843 he pub. Jack Kimton; also Tom Burke of Ours. In 1844 he pub. Tom Burke of Ours. In 1845 he pub. The O'Donoghue; Arthur O'Leary. In 1847 he pub. The Knight of Gwynne: A Story of the Union. In 1850 he pub. Roland Cashel. In 1852 he pub. Maurice Tiernay. In 1857 he pub. The Fortunes of Glencore. In 1865 he pub. Tony Butler; Luthell of Arran. In 1865 he pub. Sir Brooke Fosbrooke. In 1869 he pub. The Rent in a Cloud. In 1872 he pub. Lord Kilgobbin.
In 1840 Calcutta-born William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-63) pub. The Paris Sketch Book: A Shabby Genteel Story. In 1844 he pub. The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq.. In Jan. 1847-July 1848 he pub. Vanity Fair: A Novel Without a Hero; based on John Bunyan's "The Pilgrim's Progress" (1678), Ch. 6: "Therefore at this fair are all such things sold as houses, lands, trades, places, honors, preferments, titles, countries, kingdoms, lusts, pleasures, and delights of all sorts, as wives, husbands, children, masters, servants, lives, blood, bodies, souls, silver, gold, pearls, precious stones, and what not"; set during the Battle of Waterloo; Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley of Miss Pinkerton's Academy for Young Ladies, Capt. George Osborne, Amelia's father John Sedley and brother Joseph Sedley, baronet Sir Pitt Crawley and his son Capt. Rawdon Crawley; Dominick Dunne; George's note to Becky Sharp is revealed at the end; title of the first full Technicolor film (1935), starring Marian Hopkins, with Thelma Catherine Ryan (Mrs. Pat Nixon) as an extra. In 1852 he pub. The History of Henry Esmond (3 vols.); one of the top Victorian historical novels; Col. Henry Esmond, raised in a Jacobite family fights for the Old Pretenders, is banished from his home, serves in Marlborough's campaigns in the reign of Queen Anne, and comes to accept the Protestant future of England, marrying his foster father's widow Lady Castlewood and reclaiming his inheritance before moving to Va.; dream babe Beatrix Esmond jilts Henry, flirts with the Old Pretender, and marries her mother's chaplain, who becomes a bishop, then reappears in Thackeray's "The Virginians" (1857) as the old wife of Baron Bernstein; features appearance by Addison and Steele; the backdating of 1850s furniture to Queen Anne's day causes it to be called Queen Anne style; features the big Hamilton-Mohun duel of 1712. In 1853 he pub. The Newcomes (1853-5); coins the word "capitalism"; "The wicked are wicked, no doubt, and they go astray and they fall, and they come by their deserts; but who can tell the mischief which the very virtuous do?" In 1854 he pub. The Rose and the Ring. In Nov. 1857-Oct. 1859 he pub. The Virginians (3 vols.); sequel to "The History of Henry Esmond" (1852); vol. 2 chap. 4 is written by John Pendleton Kennedy (1795-1870); Beatrix Esmond, now Baroness Bernstein has twin nephews who fight on opposite sides of the Am. Rev; features appearances by Gen. George Washington and Gen. James Wolfe; "To endure is greater than to dare; to tire out hostile fortune; to be daunted by no difficulty; to keep heart when all have lost it; to go through intrigue spotless; to forgo even ambition when the end is gained - who can say this is not greatness?"
In 1842 Dublin-born Samuel Lover (1797-1868) pub. Handy Andy, an Irish Tale; how all Irish peasants are good-natured comic figures.
On Nov. 21, 1846 Thomas Peckett (Preskett) Prest (1810-59) pub. The String of Pearls, or the Fiend of Fleet Street; Sweeney Todd the Devil Barber of Fleet St., known for keeping a trap door in the floor to dispose of them after he slits their throats; his wife bakes them into pies for their restaurant?
All those women left back home during all the military fun add up to a big year for the ding-dong Bronte (Brontë) Sisters, who live in a lonely parsonage in Yorkshire England with their brother Branwell and build their brains to epic proportions? On Oct. 16, 1847 Charlotte Bronte (1816-55) (eldest sister) pub. her 2nd novel (the first, The Professor was rejected, and is later pub. posth.) Jane Eyre: An Autobiography under the alias Currer Bell, about a meek, plain (not beautiful, so Bronte can make a moral point?) orphan governess, raised at Gateshead and sent to horrible Lowood School by her mean guardian aunt, becoming governess at Thornfield Manor, where she falls in love with her tormented, mysterious and tragic employer Edward Rochester (whose creole wife Bertha died in a fire), after which she moves in with the Rivers family in Marsh's End (Moor House), then Morton, where her fish-cold clergyman-cousin St. John Rivers proposes to her, after which she reunites with and marries Rochester at his Ferndean House; the first novel written by a woman from a woman's point of view?; "There was no possibility of taking a walk that day" (first line); in Dec. Anne Bronte (1820-49) (middle sister) pub. Agnes Grey under the alias Acton Bell; a bankrupt minister's daughter becomes a governess to wealthy spoiled children of the Bloomfields and Murrays, then marries a man who loves her for herself and lives happily ever after; one of George Moore's favorites; in Dec. Emily Bronte (Brontë) (1818-48) (youngest sister) pub. her only novel Wuthering Heights under the alias Ellis Bell, about the doomed love between the sinister Byronic hero and Liverpool foundling Heathcliff (1764-1802) (son of the Devil?) and his beautiful foster sister Catherine Earnshaw (1765-84) on the Yorkshire Moors, and how he screws her up after she dumps him for higher class Edgar Linton (1762-1801) in 1783, causing her to go mad and die during childbirth on Mar. 20, 1784, while he elopes with her sister Isabella Linton (1765-97) in Feb. 1784 and mistreats her, causing her to escape to London and give birth to son Linton Heathcliff (1784-) before dying in 1797, after which Catherine's daughter Cathy (1784-) marries Linton Heathcliff in Aug. 1801, and he dies in Sept., then Heathcliff dies in Apr. 1802; meanwhile in 1801 newcomer Mr. Lockwood of Thrushcross Grange gets housekeeper Ellen "Nelly" Dean to tell him the whole story so he can write it down; "Wuthering being a significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed in stormy weather"; written in an interlocking fashion like Matryoshka dolls. In Aug. 1848 Anne Bronte pub. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. In 1849 Charlotte Bronte pub. her 2nd novel Shirley; 1811-12 Yorkshire during the Luddite riots; Fieldhead Estate; makes the man's name Shirley popular for women. In 1853 Charlotte Bronte pub. Villette.
In 1847 Dartington, Devonshire-born James Anthony Froude (1818-94) pub. Shadows of the Clouds; pub. under alias "Zeta". In 1849 he pub. Nemesis of Faith; comes out about his break with the Anglican faith, getting him kicked out of Oxford U., where he was fellow and deacon, causing him to become a prof. historian instead, with a big ax to grind. In 1889 he pub. The Two Chiefs of Dunboy.
In 1848 Chelsea, London-born Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (1810-65) pub. Mary Barton, a Tale of Manchester Life; disses English employers' treatment of employees during the "hungry forties"; pub. anon., it later gains her the friendship of Charles Dickens. In 1850 she pub. The Moorland Cottage. In 1853 she pub. Ruth; Cranford; articles pub. in Charles Dickens' Household Words in 1851-3 about elegant English ladies in Knutsford, Cheshire. In 1854 he pub. North and South - prepare yourself for battle? In 1859 he pub. My Lady Ludlow; Lois the Witch. In 1863 he pub. Sylvia's Lovers. In 1865 he pub. Wives and Daughters (posth.).
In 1848 Dartmoor, Devonshire-born Anglican Rev. Charles Kingsley (1819-75) (friend of Charles Darwin) pub. his first novel Yeast, an attack on Roman Catholicism, the Oxford Movement, celibacy, and the English social system, with the title suggesting the "ferment of new ideas". In 1849 he pub. Alton Locke: Tailor and Poet: An Autobiography; rev. ed. 1856. In 1853 he pub. Hypatia: Or, New Foes with an Old Face; the pagan brain babe who was murdered by a mob of monks in 415 C.E., only this time she converts to Christianity right before being murdered, gag? In 1854 he pub. Westward Ho!: Or, The Voyages and Adventure of Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight; unruly child Amyas Leigh of Bideford Quay in North Devon follows Sir Francis Drake to sea and falls for beautiful Rose Salterne, who is kidnapped by a Spaniard and burned alive; the town of you know what near Bideford, Devon is later named after it, becoming the only English town with an exclamation point in its name; "And clapping both hands to the back of his neck, the schoolmaster began dancing frantically about, while his boys broke out tittering, "Oh! the ochidore.'" In 1857 he pub. Two Years Ago (2 vols.); a review by Rev. T.C. Sandars popularizes the term "Muscular Christianity", which Kingsley calls "painful, if not offensive". In 1863 he pub. The Water Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby, a children's book supporting Charles Darwin's "The Origin of Species", becoming a big hit in England for decades, after which its prejudices against Irish, Jews, Americans, and the poor cause it to fall out of favor; young chimney sweep Tom and upper class girl Ellie, who drowns and is transformed into a you know what. In 1865 he pub. Hereward the Wake: Last of the English, 18-y.-o. Hereward of Mercia, son of Earl Leofric and Lady Godiva, the last Anglo-Saxon holdout against the Normans, who kills 15 of them at a drunken feast with help from his buddy Martin Lightfoot, then turns rebel, holding up with his gang at Ely in the Fens, repelling William I the Conqueror until he is betrayed by Countess Alftruda and swears fealty to him to save his babe Torfrida, after which he is assassinated by Ivo Taillebois; makes Hereward into an English folk hero.
In 1849 Laleham-on-Thames, Middlesex-born Matthew Arnold (1822-88) (son of historian Thomas Arnold) pub. The Strayed Reveller. In 1853 he pub. The Scholar-Gypsy.
In 1849 Stoke-on-Trent-born Dinah Maria Mulock Craik (1826-87) pub. The Ogilvies. In 1850 she pub. Olive. In 1851 she pub. The Head of the Family. In 1852 she pub. Agatha's Husband. In 1853 she pub. Avillion and Other Tales. In 1855 she pub. John Halifax, Gentleman; based on Cheltenham wine merchant John Dobell. In 1859 she pub. A Life for a Life. In 1871 she pub. Hannah. In 1875 she pub. The Little Lame Prince and His Travelling Cloak. In 1879 she pub. Young Mrs. Jardine.
In 1850 London-born William Wilkie Collins (1824-89) pub. his first novel Antonina, or the Fall of Rome. In 1852 he pub. Basil: A Story of Modern Life. In 1854 he pub. Hide and Seek - double entendre theatre? In 1856 he pub. The Dead Secret. In 1860 he pub. The Woman in White; pioneers the mystery novel; Laura's fortune and identity are stolen by her new hubby, causing her half-sister Marian and poor art master Walter Hartright to come to her rescue, while Anne Catherick, the you know what pops in and out. In 1862 he pub. No Name. In 1865 he pub. Armadale. In 1868 he pub. The Moonstone; first detective novel?; a yellow diamond that sparkles or dims depending on the phases of guess what is restored to the forehead of the idol by three Hindu Brahmin priests from Benares, who are commanded by Vishnu to guard it day and night; Col. Herncastle, Rachel, Franklin Blake, Godfrey Ablewhite, Rosanna Spearman. In 1872 he pub. Poor Miss Finch. In 1873 he pub. Miss or Mrs.?; also The New Magdalen. In 1875 he pub. The Law and the Lady. In 1878 he pub. The Haunted Hotel. In 1879 he pub. The Fallen Leaves; also A Rogue's Life. In 1880 he pub. Jezebel's Daughter. In 1881 he pub. The Black Robe. In 1883 he pub. Heart and Science. In 1884 he pub. "I Say No". In 1886 he pub. The Evil Genius; also The Guilty River. In 1888 he pub. The Legacy of Cain. In 1890 he pub. Blind Love (3 vols.); preface by Walter Besant.
In 1851 Dereham, Norfolk-born linguist George Henry Borrow (1803-81) pub. Lavengro, the Scholar, the Gypsy, the Priest; based on his walking tours in England beginning in the late 1820s; Petulengro (Gypsy "the shoesmith") the Gypsy. In 1857 he pub. The Romany Rye; sequel to "Lavengro".
In 1852 Wallyford, East Lothian-born Margaret Oliphant (1828-97) pub. Adame Graeme. In 1854 she pub. Magdalen Hepburn. In 1855 she pub. Lilliesleaf. In 1858 she pub. The Laird of Norlaw. In 1862-5 she pub. The Chronicles of Carlingford in Blackwood's Mag. In 1867 she pub. Madonna Mary. In 1871 she pub. Squire Arden. In 1880 she pub. He That Will Not When He May; The Beleaguered City. In 1882 she pub. A Little Pilgrim in the Unseen. In 1883 she pub. Hester. In 1890 she pub. Kirsteen. In 1892 she pub. The Marriage of Elinor. In 1897 she pub. The Ways of Life.
In 1853 Oxfordshire-born Charles Reade (1814-84) pub. Peg Woffington; based on his 1852 play "Masks and Faces"; also Christie Johnstone. In 1856 he pub. It Is Never Too Late to Mend; expose of prison discipline in England and Australia. In 1860 he pub. White Lies; adapted from a work by Auguste Maquet. In 1861 he pub. The Cloister and the Hearth; romance of the Reformation; his masterpiece? In 1863 he pub. Hard Cash; expose of insane asylums. In 1865 he pub. Griffith Gaunt; the marriage problem. In 1871 he pub. A Terrible Temptation. In 1877 he pub. A Woman Hater; expose of village life. In 1884 he pub. The Jilt and Other Tales; Good Stories of Man and Other Animals.
In 1854 Otterbourne, Hampshire-born Charlotte Mary Yonge (1823-1901) pub. her first hit The Heir of Redclyffe; also Heartsease. In 1856 she pub. The Daisy Chain. In 1866 she pub. The Dove in the Eagle's Nest. She goes on to pub. 100+ novels.
In 1855 London-born Anthony Trollope (1815-82) (son of Frances Trollope) pub. The Warden; first in the "Chronicles of Barsetshire" (6 vols.) (1855-67). In 1857 he pub. Barchester Towers; #2 in the Barsetshire Chronicles; The Three Clerks; life in an English sponging house, owned by a bailiff, who tries to squeeze all the cash out of a debtor before the judge sends him to a debtor's prison. In 1858 he pub. Doctor Thorne; #3 in the Barsetshire Chronicles. In 1859 he pub. The Bertrams. In 1861 he pub. Framley Parsonage; #4 in the Barsetshire Chronicles. In 1864 he pub. The Small House at Allington; #5 in the Barsetshire Chronicles. In 1865 he pub. The Belton Estate. In 1867 he pub. The Last Chronicle of Barset; #6 in the Barsetshire Chronicles. In 1873 he pub. The Eustace Diamonds. In 1877 he pub. Is He Popenjoy?. In 1879 he pub. John Caldigate; also Cousin Henry. In 1880 he pub. Ayala's Angels. In 1882 he pub. The Fixed Period.
In 1856 Portsmouth-born poet George Meredith (1828-1909) pub. Farina. In 1859 he pub. The Ordeal of Richard Feverel; autobio. novel about a father who tries to give his son the perfect upbringing, until he marries a girl he doesn't like. In 1860 he pub. Evan Harrington. In 1871 he pub. The Adventures of Harry Richmond. In 1879 he pub. The Egoist. In 1880 he pub. The Tragic Comedians; life of Ferdinand Lasalle (1825-64). In 1885 he pub. Diana of the Crossways. In 1892 he pub. Jump to Glory Jane; illustrated by Laurence Housman (1865-1959).
In 1857 Warwickshire-born George Eliot (Marian or Mary Ann Evans) (1819-80) pub. Scenes of Clerical Life (short stories); the first pub. under her alias; her first pub. fictional work; set in her hometown of Nuneaton, which she calls Milby. In 1858 she pub. The Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton. In 1859 she pub. Adam Bede (first novel); carpenter Adam Bede's darymaid babe Hetty Sorrel is seduced by a squire in Hayslope, gets pregnant, murders the baby, and is sentenced to transportation; Hetty's aunt Mrs. Poyster is based on Eliot's mother; creates a lit. sensation when the identity of author Marian Evans remains mysterious and only Charles Dickens guesses her gender? In 1860 she pub. The Mill on the Floss (3 vols.); siblings Tom and Maggie Tulliver grow up on the Floss River near St. Ogg's, England in the 1820s; she hooks up with hunchbacked Phillip Wakem and wealthy Stephen Guest; the river floods and they drown; "In their death they were not divided" (epigraph). In 1861 she pub. Silas Marner, or the Weaver of Raveloe; an English weaver falls into frequent standing trances, allowing him to be framed for theft by a rival for his love, and he is exiled from his Bible-thumping community to the village of Raveloe, where he lives like a hermit and amasses bags of gold sovereigns from his weaving, which is all stolen by dissolute squire's son Dunstan Cass, after which baby girl Eppie is found on his hearth, with the drug addict mother dead in the snow, and he falls in love with her and looks to live happily ever after; too bad, 16 years later the money is found in a ravine along with the skeleton of Dunstan, causing real father Godfrey Cass (Dunstan's brother) to try to reclaim her. In 1863 she pub. Romola; about Savonarola; she visited Florence to write it; first pub. serially in Cornhill Mag.. In 1864 she pub. Brother Jacob. In 1865 she pub. Felix Holt, the Radical. In 1871 she pub. Middlemarch; small-town English citizens on the eve of the 1832 Reform Bill; progressive Dorothea Brooke marries elderly scholar Casaubon, then falls in love with his young cousin Will Ladislaw; meanwhile idealistic Dr. Tertius Lydgate arrives in Middlemarch with new methods of medicine, getting into a battle with conservatives while falling for young Rosamond Viney; "One of the few English novels written for grown-up people" (Virginia Woolf). In 1876 Daniel Deronda; broke gambler Gwendolen Harleth taps icy aristocrat Henleigh Grandcourt for money, marrying him then finding out he's cruel, and turning to Daniel Deronda for help, but he's in love with Jewish singer Mirah Lapidoth, and discovers that he's Jewish; idealizes the Jew to combat the Shylock-Fagin image? In 1886 she pub. Felix Holt, the Radical.
In 1857 Thomas Hughes (1822-96) pub. Tom Brown's Schooldays, originally pub. under the alias "by an Old Boy of Rugby", about life at Rugby School in 1834-42 during the days of headmaster Thomas Arnold (1795-1842); bully Flashman is finally expelled; followed by "Tom Brown at Oxford" (1861). In 1861 he pub. the sequel Tom Brown at Oxford.
In 1858 Canterbury-born Frederic William Farrar (1831-1903) pub. Eric, or Little by Little.
In 1861 London-born Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1835-1915) pub. The Octoroon; also The Black Band. In 1862 she pub. Lady Audley's Secret; big hit about bigamy, featuring Robert Audley, who searches for the truth about his friend George Talboy and his uncle's wife Lucy Adley; also John Marchont's Legacy. In 1863 she pub. Aurora Floyd; Eleanor's Victory. In 1864 she pub. Henry Dunbar: The Story of an Outcast; The Doctor's Wife. In 1867 she pub. Circe. In 1868 she pub. Dead-Sea Fruit. In 1870 she pub. An Open Verdict. In 1871 she pub. Fenton's Quest. In 1872 she pub. To the Bitter End. In 1873 she pub. Publicans and Sinners. In 1874 she pub. Lost for Love. In 1875 she pub. Hostages to Fortune. In 1878 she pub. An Open Verdict. In 1879 she pub. The Cloven Foot; Vixen. In 1881 she pub. Asphodel. In 1883 she pub. Phantom Fortune. In 1884 she pub. Ishmael. In 1887 she pub. Cut by the County. In 1888 she pub. The Fatal Three. In 1890 she pub. One Life, One Love. In 1891 she pub. The World, the Flesh and the Devil. In 1892 she pub. The Venetians. In 1894 she pub. The Christmas Hirelings; also Thou Art the Man. In 1895 she pub. Sons of Fire. In 1896 she pub. London Pride. In 1898 she pub. Rough Justice. In 1900 she pub. The Infidel. In 1907 she pub. Dead Love Has Chains. In 1908 she pub. During Her Majesty's Pleasure.
In 1861 Worcester-born Ellen Price (Mrs. Henry) Wood (1814-87) pub. East Lynne; melodrama about the fall of virtue; widely translated. In 1872 she pub. Within the Maze; makes Leo Tolstoy a fan.
In 1863 Bury St. Edmonds-born Ouida (Marie Louise de la Ramee) (1839-1908) (Ouida is her childhood pronunciation of "Louisa") pub. Held in Bondage. In 1865 she pub. Strathmore; Or, Wrought by His Own Hand. In 1869 she pub. Tricotrin: The Story of a Waif and Stray. In 1875 she pub. Signa; a poor Italian rises to famous opera composer; Jack London's inspiration. In 1880 she pub. Moths. In 1881 she pub. A Village Commune. In 1882 she pub. Bimbi: Stories for Children.
In 1864 Glasgow-born William Black (1841-98) pub. James Merle. In 1868 he pub. Love or Marriage. In 1871 he pub. The Monarch of Mincing Lane; A Daughter of Heth; a French Roman Catholic girl comes to live with her Protestant relatives in Scotland; makes him an instant star. In 1872 he pub. The Strange Adventures of a Phaeton. In 1874 he pub. A Princess of Thule; adapted into the play "The Maid of Arran" by L. Frank Baum. In 1876 he pub. Madcap Violet. In 1879 he pub. Macleod of Dare. In 1881 he pub. Sunrise; internat. political intrigue. In 1883 he pub. Shandon Bells; also Yolande; about drug addiction. In 1884 he pub. Judith Shakespeare; William's daughter. In 1890 he pub. The New Prince Fortunatus; London theatrical life. In 1898 he pub. Wild Eelin.
In 1864 Longworth, Berkshire-born Richard Doddridge Blackmore (1825-1900) pub. Clara Vaughn. In 1865 he pub. Cradock Nowell: A Tale of the New Forest. In 1869 he pub. Lorna Doone; coins the name "Lorna", who is kidnapped by the Doone family of outlaws; rejected by 18 publishers before Sampson Low in London pub. a 3-vol. ed., which flops; in 1871 a 1-vol. ed. is a success, then Harper's pirates it in the U.S., where it becomes the #1 bestseller of 1874. In 1872 he pub. The Maid of Sker. In 1875 he pub. Alice Lorraine. In 1887 he pub. Springhaven. In 1897 he pub. Dariel.
In 1865 Daresbury, Cheshire-born Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) (1832-98) pub. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (original title "Alice's Adventures Underground"); based on a story he first told to Alice Pleasance Liddell (1852-1934), 2nd daughter of Greek scholar Henry George Liddell (1811-98), dean of Christ Church (1855-91) on July 4 in a row boat on The Isis from Folly Bridge, Oxford to Godstow for a picnic, rowed by Rev. Robinson Duckworth (1834-1911); illustrations by Sir John Tenniel (1820-1914), who was introduced by mutual friend, "Our American Cousin" playwright Tom Taylor (1817-80); "I'm late for a very important date" (White Rabbit); the Mad Hatter is claimed to really be PM William Gladstone; too bad, Carroll is later found to have been dabbling in a little soft child porn? (healthy outdoor nature photos?). In Dec. 1871 he pub. Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There; Alice steps through a parlor mirror and enters the Looking-Glass House, meeting Humpty-Dumpty, Tweedledum, and Tweedledee, and becoming a piece in a chess game; the Red Queen loves to shout "Off with their heads!"; the White Queen lives in backwards time; "Queens never make bargains"; incl. the poems The Walrus and the Carpenter, and Jabberwocky. In 1876 he pub. The Hunting of the Snark. In 1889 he pub. Sylvie and Bruno. In 1893 he pub. Sylvie and Bruno Concluded.
In 1867 Rhoda Broughton (1840-1920) pub. her first novel Not Wisely, But Too Well; also Cometh Up as a Flower.
In 1867 Dorchester, Wessex-born Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) anon. pub. The Poor Man and the Lady, which is rejected for pub., causing him to destroy most of the ms. In 1872 he anon. pub. Under the Greenwood Tree: A Rural Painting of the Dutch School (title from Shakespeare's "As You Like It", Act 2, Scene 5) (original title "The Mellstock Quire"), his first Wessex novel, which does well enough to convince him to give up architecture for writing; his novels are highly-architected cathedrals made of words? In 1873 he pub. A Pair of Blue Eyes. In 1874 he pub. Far From the Madding Crowd, his first major lit. success; farmer Bathsheba Everdene, her lonely neighbor William Boldwood, faithful shepherd Gabriel Oak, and thriftless soldier Sgt. Troy. In 1876 he pub. The Hand of Ethelberta. In 1878 he pub. The Return of the Native; "A Saturday afternoon in November was approaching the time of twilight, and the vast tract of unenclosed wild known as Egdon Heath embrowned itself moment by moment" (opening line); Diggory Venn the reddleman (a marker of sheep flocks with red ochre, causing his skin to turn red, making him the man no woman wants, of course?) and his unobtainable love Thomasin Yeobright leave Egdon Heath in Dorsetshire on Guy Fawkes (Bonfire) (Fireworks) Night (Nov. 5) in a dog cart to marry her to horny innkeeper Damon Wildleve of the Quiet Woman (whose sign shows a decapitated woman holding her own head), who is gaga about raven-haired babe Eustacia Vye from fashionable Budmouth, but decides to marry Thomasin after finding out that Eustacia's in love with Thomasin's cousin diamond merchant Clym Yeobright, a native who just returned from Paris, and thinks he will take her away from the cruddy heath; too bad, after the two marriages, Clym decides to stay and become a lowly schoolmaster, loses his sight, and takes up furze cutting to make ends meet, while Damon inherits some dough, causing Eustacia to consider switching horses in midstream; enter Clym's Bible-thumping mother, who visits just as Damon is sneaking by to make a proposition, causing a panic attack by Eustacia, who hides Damon in the back while refusing to answer the door, causing mom to get pissed and walk back home to Bloom's End flustered, then get bit by an adder and croak, causing Clym to blame Eustacia, allowing Damon to talk her into leaving him on guess what night, not to be his wife but his mistress, but Anglo-Saxon sex guilt causes her to drown herself in Shadwater Weir, while Damon drowns trying to save her, and Diggory saves Clym's life, after which Clym becomes an itinerant preacher and Diggory marries his babe Thomasin and becomes a dairy farmer and whitens his skin and makes big milk, becoming the true returning native? In 1880 he pub. The Trumpet-Major. In 1881 he pub. A Laodicean; Paula Power, George Somerset, William Dare, Capt. De Stancy, and his sister Charlotte. In 1882 he pub. Two on a Tower; bored Lady Viviette Constantine hooks up with amateur astronomer Swithin St. Cleeve, who makes her pregnant, then dumps her for organist Tabitha Lark. In 1886 he pub. The Mayor of Casterbridge; Mayor Michael Henchard; set in Dorchestershire on the Frome River in Wessex, S England. In 1887 he pub. The Woodlanders. In 1888 he pub. Wessex Tales (short stories), mostly set before Hardy's 1840 birth, focusing on the evils of British class society. In 1891 he pub. A Group of Noble Dames (short stories). In 1892 he pub. Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented; originally serialized in The Graphic; his masterpiece?; "What a mommet [scarecrow] of a maid"; causes a public outcry over its infidelity and obscenity. In 1894 he pub. Life's Little Ironies (short stories). In 1895 he pub. his last novel Jude the Obscure; stonemason Jude Fawley dreams of being a scholar at Christminster U., and scandalously shacks up with his married cousin Sue Bridehead, who goes religious on him and leaves him to go back to her hubby after her boy Little Father Time kills two siblings and commits suicide; violent criticism as nothing but smut causes him to announce next year that he's going to abandon novel-writing and turn to poetry and drama - all the stuff just came out of me? In 1913 he pub. A Changed Man, The Waiting Supper, and Other Tales.
In 1869 County Tipperary, Ireland-born Fenian poet Charles Joseph Kickham (1828-82) pub. Sally Cavanagh, or the Untenanted Graves, written in prison, where the stankin' English railroaded him in 1866-9. In 1879 he pub. Knocknagow, or the Homes of Tipperary. In 1886 he pub. For the Old Land, a Tale of Twenty Years Ago (posth.).
In 1871 Camberwell, London-born poet Robert Browning (1812-89) pub. Balaustion's Adventure; also Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society. In 1872 he pub. Fifine at the Fair. In 1876 he pub. Pacchiarotto, and How He Worked in Distemper.
In 1872 Portsmouth-born Walter Besant (1836-1901) and Northampton-born James Rice (1843-82) pub. Ready-Money Mortiboy. In 1873 they pub. My Little Girl (3 vols.). In 1875 they pub. With Harp and Crown (3 vols.). In 1876 they pub. The Golden Butterfly (3 vols.); This Son of Vulcan (3 vols.). In 1878 they pub. Celia's Arbour: A Tale of Portsmouth Town (3 vols.); The Monks of Thelema (3 vols.). In 1879 they pub. 'Twas in Trafalgar's Bay and Other Stories. In 1880 they pub. The Seamy Side (3 vols.). In 1881 they pub. The Chaplain of the Fleet (3 vols.). In 1882 Besant pub. All Sorts and Conditions of Men (3 vols.); also The Revolt of Man; gender roles reversed. In 1883 he pub. All in a Garden Fair: The Simple Story of Three Boys and a Girl (3 vols.), which inspires Rudyard Kipling to leave India and become a writer. In 1884 he pub. Dorothy Forster (3 vols.). In 1885 he pub. Uncle Jack. In 1886 he pub. Children of Gibeon (3 vols.). In 1887 he pub. The World Went Very Well Then (3 vols.). In 1888 he pub. Herr Paulus (3 vols.). In 1889 he pub. The Bell of St. Paul's; also To Call Her Mind. In 1890 he pub. Armorel of Lyonesse (3 vols.); also The Holy Rose. In 1891 he pub. St. Katherine's by the Tower (3 vols.). In 1892 he pub. Verbena, Camellia, Stephanotis, etc.. In 1893 he pub. The Ivory Gate (3 vols.); The Rebel Queen (3 vols.). In 1895 he pub. Beyond the Dreams of Avarice. In 1896 he pub. The Master Craftsman (2 vols.). In 1898 he pub. The Changeling. In 1899 he pub. The Orange Girl. In 1900 he pub. The Fourth Generation; why do the innocent suffer for the sins of their forefathers? In 1902 he pub. A Five Years' Tryst and Other Stories; also No Other Way.
In 1872 Langar, Nottinghamshire-born Samuel Butler (1835-1902) pub. Erewhon, or Over the Range; "nowhere" spelled backwards; Higgs discovers a Kiwi town where criminals are sent to the doctor while the sick are punished; he escapes in a balloon. In 1901 he pub. the sequel Erewhon Revisited Twenty Years Later, Both by the Original Discoverer of the Country and by His Son ; Higgs return to find that he is worshiped as "Sunchild", and is whisked out again when he tries to debunk the new religion. In 1903 The Way of All Flesh is pub. posth.; semi-autobio. satire on mid-Victorian family life, about the Pontifex family.
In 1875 Aldeburgh, Suffolk-born suffragist Millicent Fawcett (1847-1929) pub. Janet Doncaster.
In 1876 Caverswall, Staffordshire-born Robert Williams Buchanan (1841-1901) pub. his first novel The Shadow of the Sword. In 1881 he pub. God and the Man. In 1885 he pub. Foxglove Manor. In 1896 he pub. Effie Hetherington. In 1898 he pub. Father Anthony.
In 1877 County Cork, Ireland-born Margaret Wolfe Hungerford (1855-97) pub. her first novel Phyllis. In 1878 she pub. Molly Bawn; coins the phrase "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." In 1879 she pub. Airy Fairy Lilian. In 1881 she pub. Mrs. Geoffrey; also Faith and Unfaith. In 1882 she pub. Portia; or By Passions Rocked. In 1883 she pub. Loys, Lord Beresford, and Other Tales; also Moonshine and Marguerites; also Rossmoyne. In 1884 she pub. Doris; also The Witching Hour and Other Stories; Fortune's Wheel and Other Stories; also A Week in Killarny (Her Week's Amusement). In 1885 she pub. O Tender Dolores; Mildred Trevanion; also A Maiden All Forlorn and Other Stories; also In Durance Vile and Other Stories; also Dick's Sweetheart; also Green Pastures and Grey Grief. In 1886 she pub. Lady Branksmere; A Mental Struggle; The Haunted Chamber; Lady Valworth's Diamonds. In 1887 she pub. A Modern Circe; also The Duchess. In 1888 she pub. Undercurrents; also Marvel; also Honourable Mrs. Vereker. In 1889 she pub. A Life's Remorse; A Troublesome Girl. In 1890 she pub. A Born Coquette; April's Lady; also A Little Rebel; also Her Last Throw. In 1891 she pub. A Little Irish Girl and Other Stories. In 1892 she pub. The O'Connors of Ballinahinch; Nor Wife Nor Maid; also A Conquering Heroine; also Lady Patty; also Nora Creina. In 1893 she pub. A Mad Prank; The Red House Mystery; Lady Verner's Flight. In 1894 she pub. Peter's Wife; also The Hoyden. In 1895 she pub. The Three Graces; A Tug of War; The Professor's Experiment; Molly Darling and Other Stories. In 1896 she pub. A Lonely Girl (Maid); also A Point of Conscience. In 1897 she pub. An Anxious Moment; Lovice (posth); The Coming of Chloe (posth.).
In 1877 Great Yarmouth, Norfolk-born Anna Sewell (1820-78) pub. her first (only) novel Black Beauty: The Autobiography of a Horse; AKA Darkie and Old Crony; worldwide bestseller (50M copies); a horse starts out as a riding and carriage horse, ends up as a mistreated town cab horse, and finds happiness in a secure home, keeping its good temper; written by invalid Sewell "to induce kindness, empathy and an understanding treatment of horses"; sold to Jarrolds for 20 pounds, and pub. 3 mo. before her death, after which it becomes the #6 bestseller in the English language; filmed in 1917 by Edward H. Griffith as "Your Obedient Servant", in 1924 by Edward H. Griffith, in 1946 by Max Nosseck, in 1971 by James Hill, and in 1994 by Caroline Thompson; "There is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to man and beast, it is all a sham." (Ch. 13)
In 1879 Edinburgh-born Robert Louis (Balfour) Stevenson (1850-94) pub. his first travel book Travels with a Donkey. In 1881 he pub. Virginibus Puerisque. In 1882 he pub. The New Arabian Nights; Prince Florizel; also Treasure Island (original title "The Sea-Cook"); narrated by Jim Hawkins; pirate Ben Gunn is marooned there, and digs up the treasure; the first thing he wants when he sees Hawkins is a piece of cheese; the "Black Spot" is given to announce a death verdict, and causes Billy Bones to suffer a fatal stroke; when Long John Silver gets one, he yawns it off and points out that it's a no-no to tear one out of a Bible; Capt. Smollett's 200-ton ship the Hispaniola; Long John Silver is based on amputee poet friend William Ernest Henley (1849-1903), author of Invictus; it all starts when Stevenson draws a treasure map for his stepson?; "15 men on a dead man's chest, yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum". In 1885 he pub. Prince Otto. In 1886 he pub. Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; "Man is not truly one, but truly two... recognize the primitive duality of man"; the novel is immediately turned into a hugely successful stage play, but after the Whitechapel "Jack the Ripper" murders begin in autumn 1888 the producers shut it down, believing it to be in poor taste. In 1887 he pub. Kidnapped; young Davie Balfour (his wife's maiden name) is kidnapped from his eccentric Uncle Ebenezer while attempting to claim his rightful inheritance, and stuck in the hold of a slave ship headed for the New World, where he meets exiled Highland hero Alan Breck, and they escape together to fight their way through Scotland. In 1888 he pub. The Master of Ballantrae: A Winter's Tale; written in the Adirondacks in N.Y.; about the 1745 Jacobite Rising. In 1892 he and William Ernest Henley (1849-1903) pub. Decon Brodie; also Beau Austin; also Admiral Guinea. He dies on Dec. 3, 1894 in Samoa of a stroke after writing his last novel Catriona (David Balfour), a sequel to Kidnapped; leaves unfinished St. Ives, completed in 1898 by Arthur Quiller-Couch.
In 1880 Wakefield, Yorkshire-born George Gissing (1857-1903) pub. his first novel Workers in the Dawn. In 1889 he pub. The Nether World. In 1891 he pub. New Grub Street; known for its hack writers. In 1892 he pub. Born in Exile. In 1893 he pub. The Odd Women. In 1894 he pub. In the Year of Jubilee. In 1897 he pub. The Whirlpool.
In 1880 Bradenham, Norfolk-born Henry Rider Haggard (1856-1925) and Selkirk-born Andrew Lang (1844-1912) pub. The World's Desire. In 1885 Haggard pub. King Solomon's Mines; first story about glamorous adventurer Allan Quatermain; also Hunter Quatermain's Story. In 1886 Haggard pub. Long Odds. In 1886 Lang pub. The Mark of Cain; In the Wrong Paradise (short stories). In 1886 Haggard pub. She; no substitute for ma and order?; also Jess; also Allan Quatermain; also A Tale of Three Lions. In 1887 Lang and Walter Herries Pollock pub. He. In 1888 Haggard pub. Mr. Meeson's Will; also Maiwa's Revenge; also Colonel Quaritch, V.C.; also My Fellow Laborer and the Wreck of the Copeland. In 1889 Haggard pub. Cleopatra; Allan's Wife. In 1889 Lang pub. Prince Prigio; The Blue Fairy Book; a hit, causing him to crank out a long series of different-colored fairy books to keep him in the green. In 1890 Haggard and Lang pub. The World's Desire. In 1891 Haggard pub. Eric Brighteyes. In 1892 Haggard pub. Nada the Lily. In 1892 Lang pub. The Green Fairy Book. In 1893 Haggard pub. Montezuma's Daughter. In 1894 Haggard pub. The People of the Mist. In 1894 Lang pub. The Yellow Fairy Book. In 1895 Haggard pub. Joan Haste; also Heart of the World. In 1895 Lang pub. My Own Fairy Book. In 1896 Haggard pub. The Wizard. In 1896 Lang pub. A Monk of Fife; a young Scot in France in 1429-31. In 1897 Lang pub. The Pink Fairy Book. In 1898 Haggard pub. Doctor Theme; also Swallow. In 1899 Haggard pub. A Farmer's Year; The Spring of Lion; Elissa: The Doom of Zimbabwe. In 1900 Lang pub. The Grey Fairy Book. In 1901 Haggard pub. A Winter Pilgrimage; also Lysbeth. In 1901 Lang pub. The Violet Fairy Book. In 1903 Haggard pub. Pearl Maiden. In 1903 Lang pub. The Crimson Fairy Book. In 1904 Haggard pub. Stella Fregelius; also Brethren. In 1904 Lang pub. The Brown Fairy Book. In 1905 Haggard pub. Ayesha: The Return of She. In 1906 Haggard pub. The Way of the Spirit; also Benita. In 1906 Lang pub. The Red Romance Book; also The Orange Fairy Book. In 1907 Haggard pub. Fair Margaret. In 1907 Lang pub. The Olive Fairy Book. In 1908 Haggard pub. The Yellow God: An Idol of Africa; also The Ghost Kings. In 1909 Haggard pub. The Lady of Blossholme. In 1910 Haggard pub. Queen Sheba's Ring; also Morning Star; dedicated to E.A. Wallis Budge. In 1910 Lang pub. The Lilac Fairy Book. In 1911 Haggard pub. Red Eve; also The Mahatma and the Hare. In 1912 Haggard pub. Marie. In 1913 Haggard pub. Child of Storm. In 1914 Haggard pub. The Wanderer's Necklace. In 1915 Haggard pub. Allan and the Holy Flower. In 1916 Haggard pub. The Ivory Child. In 1917 Haggard pub. Finished; also Love Eternal. In 1918 Haggard pub. Moon of Israel. In 1919 Haggard pub. When the World Shook. In 1920 Haggard pub. The Ancient Allan; also Smith and the Pharaohs. In 1921 Haggard pub. She and Allan. In 1922 Haggard pub. The Virgin of the Sun. In 1923 Haggard pub. Wisdom's Daughter. In 1924 Haggard pub. Heu-Heu. In 1925 Haggard pub. Queen of the Dawn. In 1926 Treasure of the Lake is posth. pub. In 1927 Allan and the Ice Gods is posth. pub. In 1929 Mary of Marion Isle is posth. pub. In 1930 Belshazzar is posth. pub.
In 1881 Coate, Wilshire-born nature writer John Richard Jefferies (1848-87) pub. Wood Magic: A Fable; child hero Bevis, who lies on a farm near Londpond, and can speak to the animals, who are revolting against the tyrant magpie Capchack. In 1882 he pub. the sequel Bevis. In 1887 he pub. Amaryllis at the Fair.
In 1881 Flintshire-born Welsh novelist Daniel Owen (1836-95) pub. Y Dreflan. In 1885 he pub. Rhys Lewis. In 1891 he pub. Enoc Huws.
In 1881 Birmingham-born Joseph Henry Shorthouse (1834-1903) pub. John Inglesant; set in Little Gidding, making him a star. In 1883 he pub. The Little Schoolmaster Mark: A Spiritual Romance; Little Mark tutors the Prince's children to give them "the grace of refinement which piety brings".
In 1881 Hobart, Tasmania-born Mrs. Mary Augusta Humphry Ward (1851-1920) (daughter of Tom Arnold and niece of Matthew Arnold) pub. Milly and Olly (children's book). In 1884 she pub. her first novel Miss Bretherton. In 1888 she pub. the bestseller (1M copies) Robert Elsmere, a novel of religious doubt attacking evangelical Christianity; an Oxford clergyman reads Friedrich Wilhelm Schelling and David Strauss and begins to doubt his Anglican faith, turning to "constructive liberalism" that stresses social work among the disadvantaged; set in Longsleddale, Lake District, which she calls Long Whindale; its internat. sales are the first to exceed Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 "Uncle Tom's Cabin"; makes a fan of Henry James; "Simply Arnold's 'Literature and Dogma' with the literature left out." (Oscar Wilde) In 1892 she pub. The History of David Grieve. In 1894 she pub. Marcella. In 1896 she pub. Sir George Tressady. In 1898 she pub. Helbeck of Bannisdale. In 1900 she pub. Eleanor. In 1903 she pub. Lady Rose's Daughter; bestseller. In 1905 she pub. The Marriage of William Ashe; bestseller. In 1906 she pub. Fenwick's Career. In 1908 she pub. The Testing of Diana Mallory. In 1909 she pub. Daphne. In 1910 she pub. Canadian Born. In 1911 she pub. The Case of Richard Meynell. In 1913 she pub. The Mating of Lydia; also The Coryston Family. In 1914 she pub. Delia Blanchflower. In 1915 she pub. Eltham House. In 1916 she pub. A Great Success; also Lady Connie. In 1917 she pub. Missing. In 1918 she pub. The War and Elizabeth (Elizabeth's Campaign). In 1919 she pub. Cousin Philip. In 1920 she pub. Harvest.
In 1882 County Kildare, Ireland-born Emily Lawless (1845-1913) pub. her first novel A Chelsea Householder. In 1885 she pub. A Millionaire's Cousin. In 1886 she pub. Hurrish. In 1887 she pub. Major Lawrence FLS. In 1889 she pub. Plain Frances Mowbray and Other Tales. In 1890 she pub. With Essex in Ireland. In 1892 she pub. Grania. In 1894 she pub. Maelcho. In 1900 she pub. A Garden Diary; dedicated to her love Lady Sarah Spencer. In 1902 she pub. With the Wild Geese. In 1906 she pub. Book of Gilly. In 1909 she pub. The Point of View. In 1914 she pub. The Inalienable Heritage; also The Race of Castlebar.
In 1883 County Mayo, Ireland-born George Moore (1852-1933) pub. A Modern Lover; brings French naturalism to English Victorians. In 1885 he pub. A Mummer's Wife; another French naturalistic novel. In 1886 he pub. A Drama in Muslin. In 1888 he pub. Confessions of a Young Man. In 1894 he pub. Esther Waters; makes his lit. rep. In 1895 he pub. In 1895 he pub. The Celibates (short stories). In 1898 he pub. Evelyn Innes. In 1903 he pub. The Untilled Field (short stories); written in Ireland, where he lives from 1901-10. In 1905 he pub. The Lake. In 1906 he pub. My Dead Life. In 1916 he pub. The Brook Kerith; written after a visit to Palestine; causes a furor over its depiction of Jesus as only swooning on the cross, then recovering, coming to his senses, going straight, and moving to Qumran to become an Essene monk; a hilarious climax shows St. Paul meeting him, realizing he's no good to his new movement, and pretending he never saw him - go Apostles, the 12th man is here? In 1918 he pub. Story-Teller's Holiday (short stories). In 1921 he pub. Heloise and Abelard; his masterpiece? In 1924 he pub. Daphnis and Chloe (short stories). In 1926 he pub. Ulick and Soracha (short stories).
In 1883 South African-born Olive Emilie Albertina Schreiner (1855-1920) (daughter of a Lutheran clergyman) pub. The Story of an African Farm in London under the alias Ralph Iron, shocking the Victorian readers with agnostic freethought, feminism, premarital sex, pregnancy out of wedlock, even transvestitism, becoming a bestseller. In 1890 she pub. Dreams. In 1893 she pub. Dream Life and Real Life. In 1897 she pub. Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland.
In 1884 English theologian Edwin Abbott Abbott (1838-1926) pub. Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, about A Square encountering a Sphere from another world; ignored until Einstein's Theory of Relativity, after which it becomes a classic.
In 1885-8 Torquay, Devon-born superbrain explorer Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821-90) (speaks 29 languages) (known as the "White Nigger" for going native, and "Ruffian Dick" for his frequent winning fights) pub. The Arabian Nights; incl. Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, in which a poor forester uses the phrase "Open Sesame" to open a robber's cave and rob it, but his dumb brother Kasim later gets stuck inside when he forgets the sesame part and is killed, and the robbers sneak into Ali Baba's house in oil jars, but his slave girl Morgiana kills them with boiling oil; Leslie's declares it "unfit for publication" because of its bawdy stories; a century later (May 1985) a judge rules it obscene and orders 3K copies destroyed.
In 1885 Hall Caine (1853-1931) pub. his first novel The Shadow of a Crime. In 1886 he pub. A Son of Hagar. In 1887 he pub. The Deemster. In 1890 he pub. The Bondman; also The Scapegoat. In 1893 he pub. Cap'n Davey's Honeymoon. In 1894 he pub. The Manxman. In 1897 he pub. The Christian. In 1901 he pub. The Eternal City.
In 1885 Argentina-born William Henry Hudson (1841-1922) pub. his first novel The Purple Land; set in Uruguay. In 1901 he pub. Tales of the Pampas. In 1904 he pub. Green Mansions; romance of the South Am. wilderness with bird girl Rima.
In 1885 British Adm. David Dixon Porter (1813-91) pub. The Adventures of Harry Marline; also Allan Dare and Robert le Diable; also Arthur Merton, a Romance.
In 1886 Manchester-born Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849-1924) pub. Little Lord Fauntleroy; poor 7-y.-o. New Yorker Cedric Errol dresses in black velvet and lace collar with curls, and inherits the English title of Earl of Dorington; causes mothers to begin dressing their unhappy tykes in Little Lord Fauntleroy suits. In 1909 she pub. The Secret Garden (working title "Mistress Mary"); sickly Indian-born Brit girl Mary Lennox is sent to Misselthwaite Manor in Yorkshire to live with daddy's widower brother-in-law Archibald Craven, and is shown the you know what by chambermaid Martha, then learns about bedridden Colin and teaches him to walk.
In 1886 Hodnet, Shropshire-born Mary Cholmondeley (1859-1925) (pr. CHUM-lee) pub. The Danvers Jewels. In 1889 she pub. Sir Charles Danvers. In 1890 she pub. Let Loose. In 1893 she pub. Diana Tempest. In 1897 she pub. Devotee: An Episode in the Life of a Butterfly. In 1899 she pub. Red Pottage. In 1906 she pub. Prisoners. In 1908 she pub. The Lowest Rung. In 1912 she pub. Moth and Rust. In 1913 she pub. After All; also Notwithstanding. In 1917 she pub. Under One Roof.
In 1886 Marie Corelli (1855-1924) pub. her first novel A Romance of Two Worlds; attempts to introduce New Age concepts (reincarnation etc.) into Christianity, and hits paydirt, becoming the best-selling Jacqueline Susann type novelist of Victorian England, and Queen Victoria's favorite; other fans incl. Winston Churchill and Randolph Churchill. In 1887 she pub. Thelma. In 1889 she pub. Ardath. In 1890 she pub. Wormwood. In 1893 she pub. Barabbas: A Dream of the World's Tragedy. In 1895 she pub. The Sorrows of Satan; bestseller. In 1900 she pub. The Master Christian. In 1902 she pub. Temporal Power: a Study in Supremacy. In 1911 she pub. The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance. In 1921 she pub. The Secret Power.
In 1887 Edinburgh, Scotland-born opthalmologist Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan (Gael. "high") Doyle (1859-1930) pub. A Study in Scarlet, which introduces Sherlock Holmes (based on Edinburgh surgeon Dr. Joseph Bell, and named for U.S. Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. and cricket player Sherlock), who wears a deerstalker hat and an Inverness cape, lives at 221B Baker St. in London, has a trusty sidekick named Dr. John H. Watson (who marries his 2nd wife Mary Morstan on May 1, 1889 in Camberwell), plays a 500-guinea Stradivarius violin, likes 7% solution cocaine and morphine, uses the alias Stanley Sigurdson, and applies techniques from the emerging science of forensics to solve the most intractable crimes; Doyle receives Ł25 for it; Holmes is modeled on Scottish forensic surgeon Joseph Bell (1837-1911); the first person to play Holmes on stage is Charles Hallam Elton Brookfield (1857-1913). In 1890 he pub. The Sign of Four; also The Firm of Girdlestone. In Jan. 1891 The Strand Magazine begins pub., with initial circ. of 300K, based in Burleigh St. off The Strand, London, ceasing pub. in Mar. 1950; first ed. (1891-1930) is Herbert Greenhough Smith (1855-1935), who goes on to pub. many Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes stories and boost his career. On Oct. 14, 1892 Doyle pub. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes; in the new The Strand Mag. beginning in the July 1891 issue and ending in 1927 after 56 stories; "I play the game for the game's own sake" (Holmes); Holmes and his nemesis Prof. James Moriarty fall to their deaths in May 1891 in Reichenbach Falls in the Dec. 1893 issue, and the public outcry, bordering on nat. mourning forces a reappearance eight years later in A Scandal in Bohemia, which begins with the line "To Sherlock Holmes she is always THE woman" (Irene Adler); the 1893 story The Adventure of the Gloria Scott contains the phrase "the chaplain stood with a smoking pistol in his hand", coining the term "smoking gun". In 1893 he pub. the story The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter, introducing his older and smarter but lazier brother Mycroft Holmes. In Dec. 1893 he pub. The Adventure of the Final Problem, introducing Sherlock's archenemy Prof. James Moriarty in 1892, who both deaths from Reichenbach Falls, after which a barrage from fans causes Doyle to relent and bring Shelock back in the 1903 story The Adventure of the Empty House, later collected in the book 1903-4 book The Return of Sherlock Holmes. In 1902 he pub. the novel The Hound of the Baskervilles, a bloodhound-mastiff cross of diabolical supernatural origin. In 1912 he pub. the novel The Lost World; an expediton to the Monte Roraima (Tepuyes) Plateau in Venezuela and Guyana by Prof. Challenger, Lord John Roxton, and journalist Ed Malone finds living dinos, early human hominids, and vicious ape-like creatures - this jararaca's on you? His creation of the super-rational Sherlock Holmes combined with his own irrational belief in Spiritualism is proof that Geminis have a dual nature?
In 1887 Bodmin, Cornwall-born Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (1863-1944) pub. Dead Man's Rock. In 1888 he pub. The Astonishing History of Troy Town. In 1889 he pub. The Splendid Spur.
In 1888 Walthamstow-born Socialist poet William Morris (1834-96) pub. A Dream of John Ball; about a Socialist England. In 1891 he pub. the sequel News from Nowhere. In 1894 he pub. The Wood Beyond the World. In 1896 he pub. The Well at the World's End.
In 1888 Bombay, India-born Joseph Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) (who will only write with black-ink pens?) pub. Plain Tales from the Hills; also The Phantom Rickshaw and other Eerie Tales (short stories); incl. The Man Who Would Be King; based on the life of James Brooke, first white rajah of Sarawak in Borneo, Josiah Harlan, prince of Ghor, and explorer Adolf Schlagintweit, set in Kafiristan in E Afghanistan; filmed in 1975. In 1890 he pub. his first novel The Light That Failed. In 1892 he pub. In the Rukh; the first story about Mowgli as an adult. In 1894 he pub. The Jungle Book (short stories) (2 vols.); Mowgli, Sabu, Shere Khan the Tiger, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi the Mongoose; written in Brattleboro, Vt., home of Kipling's wife Caroline, whom he married in 1892; by now he's getting so popular that people keep his personal checks uncashed as souvenirs? In 1897 he pub. Captains Courageous, a coming of age sea novel about 15-y.-o. Harvey Cheyne Jr., spoiled son of a railroad tycoon in San Diego, Calif., who is washed overboard from his transatlantic steamship and saved from drowning in the Grand Banks of Newfoundland in the N Atlantic by Portuguese fisherman Manuel of the fishing trawler "We're Here", after which Capt Disko Troop won't take him to port or believe he's wealthy, making him join his crew and turning him into a man; title comes from the ballad "Mary Ambree": "When captains courageous, whom death could not daunt"; filmed in 1937 by Victor Fleming - so what's with the blue jackets? In Feb. 1899 he pub. the poem The White Man's Burden in McClure's Mag., creating a big reaction, either hero worship or backlash; he wrote it to tell the Yanks what they were up against for taking over the Philippines?; "Take up the White Man's burden/ Send forth the best ye breed... Your new-caught, sullen peoples,/ Half-devil and half-child" - what a way to start the 20th century? In 1899 he pub. Stalky and Co.. In Oct. 1891 he pub. Kim, about the orphaned son of an Irish soldier in India after the Second Afghan War of 1878-80; the curator of the Lahore Museum is based on Kipling's father, who held the post. In 1902 he pub. Just-So Stories; incl. "How the Camel Got His Hump", "How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin", "The Cat that Walked by Himself", etc. In 1906 he pub. Puck of Pook's Hill (short stories); two children living near Pevensey are plucked out of history by Puck. In 1910 he pub. Rewards and Fairies, a sequel to "Puck of Pook's Hill".
In 1888 Mark Rutherford (William Hale White) (1829-1913) pub. The Revolution in Tanner's Lane. In 1893 he pub. Catherine Furze.
In 1888 Paisley-born poet William Sharp (1855-1905) pub. his first novel Sport of Chance. In 1891 he pub. Sospiri di Roma. In 1892 he pub. A Fellowe and His Wife; also Pagan Review. In 1894 he pub. his first novel Pharais: A Romance of the Isles under the alias Fiona MacLeod. In 1895 he pub. Mountain Lovers; The Laughter of Peterkin; The Sin-Eater and Other Tales; all pub. under the alias Fiona MacLeod. Ecce Puella and Other Prose Imaginings; The Washer of the Flood under the alias Fiona MacLeod. In 1900 he pub. The Divine Adventure under the alias Fiona MacLeod; Iona; pub. under the alias Fiona MacLeod; Lyrica Celtica: An Anthology of Representative Celtic Poetry.
In Apr.-June 1888 Bromley, Kent, England-born sci-fi writer Herbert George "H.G." Wells (1866-1946) ("the Father of Science Fiction") ("the Shakespeare of Science Fiction") pub. his first short story The Chronic Argonauts, about Dr. Moses Nebogipfel of the Welsh town of Llyddwdd, who escapes a mob with Rev. Elijah Ulysses Cook in a time machine, making him an Anachronic Man; first story about an inventor-built time machine; pub. in the Science Schools Journal of the Royal College of Science. In 18953-5 he pub. The Stolen Bacillus and Other Stories (short stories). In 1895 he pub. his first novel The Time Machine: An Invention (original title "The Chronic Argonauts"); a man builds a machine in which he travels backward to the beginning of time and forward to the extinction of the Sun, meeting the Morlocks, descendants of the protetariat, who live underground herding the Eloi, descendants of the aristocrats on the surface for meat; makes him a star, after which he cranks out sci-fi hits for the next decade (until 1906). In 1896 he pub. The Island of Dr. Moreau; genetic experiments to make animals into people; Edward Prendick is shipwrecked in the S Pacific Ocean; Montgomery and his manservant M'ling the human-dog. In 1897 he pub. The Invisible Man; filmed in 1933. In 1898 he pub. The War of the Worlds; incl. "The Coming of the Martians", and "The Earth Under the Martians". In 1899 he pub. Tales of Space and Time (short stories). In 1901 he pub. The First Men on the Moon; British scientist Dr. Cavor and British businessman Mr. Bedford discover the Selenites; filmed in 1964. In 1905 he pub. Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul; a draper's asst. inherits a small fortune; made into the 1940 Carol Reed film "Kipps" and the 1967 George Sidney film "Half a Sixpence". In 1906 he pub. In the Days of the Comet; humanity is "exalted" when a comet causes "the nitrogen of the air, the old azote" to "change out of itself" and become "a respirable gas, differing indeed from oxygen, but helping and sustaining its action, a bath of strength and healing for nerve and brain"; "The great Change has come for evermore, happiness and beauty are our atmosphere, there is peace on earth and good will to all men." In 1907 he pub. The War in the Air, which predicts aerial warfare in WWI; Bert Smallways, a "forward-thinking young man" and a "kind of bicycle engineer of the let's-'ave-a-look-at-it and enamel-chipping variety." In 1909 he pub. Ann Veronica, about the New Woman in Victorian London; Tono-Bungay; the rise to wealth and fame of a patent medicine man. In 1910 he pub. The History of Mr. Polly; English shopkeeper Alfred Polly faces bankruptcy, and burns down his house and escapes his horrible wife to enjoy a life of freedom along with his uncles Pentstemon and Jim. In 1911 he pub. The New Machiavelli; satirizes Beatrice Webb and Sidney Webb as the Baileys, along with their Fabian Society. In 1914 he pub. The World Set Free; a world fought with "atomic bombs" causes the survivors to set up a OWG; Hungarian Jewish nuclear physicist Leo Szilard (1898-1964) reads it in 1932, then tries in vain to stop Truman from dropping the A-bomb on Japan. In Sept. 1916 he pub. Mr. Britling Sees It Through; an avg. Englishman on the home front in WWI. In 1926 he pub. The World of William Clissold; Wells turns preachy, with the title char. lecturing on life in the Middle Ages, the sex problem, the shortcomings of Marxism, and the need to have a One World Govt. (OWG) Repub. In 1927 he pub. Meanwhile; the Open Conspiracy for establishing a OWG. In 1930 he pub. The Autocracy of Mr. Parham. In Sept. 1933 he pub. The Shape of Things to Come; how scientists will save the world after the world wars trash it, incl. an "Encyclopaedic organization which centres upon Barcelona, with seventeen million active workers",
In May 1888 Dublin-born Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (1854-1900) pub. The Happy Prince and Other Tales. In July 1890 he pub. The Picture of Dorian Gray (July); in Lippincott's Monthly Mag., with 500 "indecent" words deleted; it is pub. in book form next year; coins the name Dorian (Gr. "from Doris"), for the title char., who has "finely-curved scarlet lips" and descends into a life of vice yet stays young while his portrait, er, picture grows old and jaded; when it is destroyed, guess what?; "I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die."
In 1889 Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) pub. Three Men in a Boat; three friends row up the Thames from Hampton Court to Oxford with their dog; a "classic of whimsical humour" - pip, pip, bloody bloody, and all that rot?
In 1890 London-born Anthony Hope (Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins) (1863-1933) pub. his first novel A Man of Mark. In 1894 he pub. The Dolly Dialogues; The Prisoner of Zenda; illustrations by Charles Dana Gibson; the King of Ruritania? In 1896 he pub. The Heart of Princess Osra (short stories); prequel to "Prisoner of Zenda". In 1898 he pub. Rupert of Hentzau; sequel to "Prisoner of Zenda". In 1906 he pub. Sophy of Kravonia.
In 1890 Middlesbrough-born Ernest William Hornung (1866-1921) (husband of Arthur Conan Doyle's sister Constance Doyle) pub. A Bride from the Bush.
On Mar. 4, 1891 after complaints by British writers Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Hardy, Walter Besant, and William Black, the U.S. adopts the U.S. Internat. Copyright (Chace) Act of 1891, sponsored by U.S. Sen. (R-R.I.) (1885-9) Jonathan Chace (1829-1917), finally upholding internat. copyrights and ending America's status as a copyright pirate haven where only copyrights of U.S. citizens are respected; poet Robert Underwood Johnson (1853-1937), secy. of the Am. Copyright League is instrumental in its passage; the right of authors to bargain for their work causes the advent of U.S. literary agents; too bad, Harper & Bros. pub. house had made its main biz the selling of cheap reprints of foreign authors, and almost goes bankrupt, allowing Frank Nelson Doubleday (1862-1934) (who partnered with Samuel S. McClure of McClure's Mag. in Mar. 1897) to take control in 1898, only to bail out when he finds out how bad their books look.
In 1892 Bilston, Staffordshire-born poet Sir Henry John Newbolt (1862-1938) pub. his first novel Taken From the Enemy.
In 1892 London-born Israel Zangwill (1864-1926) (coiner of the term "melting pot") pub. Children of the Ghetto: A Study of a Peculiar People; his first serious work, about London Jews. In 1893 he pub. Ghetto Tragedies. In 1894 he pub. The King of Schnorrers. In 1895 he pub. his first novel A Drama in Dutch under the alias "Z.Z." In 1896 he pub. The World and A Man. In 1897 he pub. The Beautiful Miss Brook. In 1899 he pub. Cleo the Magnificent; or, The Muse of the Rear. In 1919 he pub. Jimmy the Carrier.
In 1893 Sussex-born poet Wilfrid Scawen Blunt (1840-1922) pub. Griselda (verse novel).
In 1893 Mary Elizabeth Coleridge (1861-1907) (great-grandniece of Samuel Taylor Coleridge) pub. her first novel The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus; praised by Robert Louis Stevenson. In 1897 she pub. The Knight with Two Faces.
In 1893 Edinburgh-born Kenneth Grahame (1859-1932) pub. Pagan Papers. In 1898 he pub. Dream Days. In 1898 he becomes secy. of the Bank of England. In 1908 he pub. The Wind in the Willows, after which he retires; "Famous Mr. Mole" ("Onion Sauce!"), J. Thaddeus Toad of Toad Hall, "Gallant Water Rat", and Badger fighting industrial encroachment on the English countryside near the riverbanks; writer lives at Pangbourne on the Thames River.
In 1893 Sarah Grand (Frances Elizabeth Bellenden Clarke) (McFall) (1854-1943) pub. The Heavenly Twins; why male-female marriage sucks. In 1894 she pub. On Manifold Nature; coins the term "New Woman". In 1897 she pub. The Beth Book. In 1912 she pub. Adnams Orchard. In 1922 she pub. Variety.
In 1893 New York City-born Henry Harland (1861-1905) (who moved to London in 1890 and pretended to be born in St. Petersburg) pub. Mademoiselle Miss. In 1895 he pub. Grey Roses. In 1898 he pub. Comedies and Errors. In 1900 he pub. The Cardinal's Snuff-Box; his first hit. In 1901 he pub. The Lady Paramount. In 1903 he pub. My Friend Prospero.
In 1893 Flora Annie Steel (1847-1929) (who spent 22 years in India) pub. From the Five Rivers (short stories). In 1896 she pub. On the Face of the Waters; the 1857 Indian Mutiny. In 1897 she pub. In the Permanent Way and Other Stories. In 1900 she pub. Voices in the Night; also The Hosts of the Lord. In 1903 she pub. In the Guardianship of God. In 1906 she pub. A Sovereign Remedy. In 1918 she pub. English Fairy Tales; illustrated by Arthur Rackham; also Mistress of Men.
In 1894 Guyana-born William John Locke (1863-1930) pub. At the Gate of Samaria (first novel). In 1895 he pub. The Demagogue and Lady Phayre. In 1896 he pub. Some Women and a Man: A Comedy of Contrasts. In 1897 he pub. Derelicts. In 1900 he pub. White Dove. In 1901 he pub. The Usurper. In 1903 he pub. Where Love Is. In 1905 he pub. The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne. In 1906 he pub. The Beloved Vagabond. In 1908 he pub. A Study in Shadows. In 1909 he pub. Septimus. In 1910 he pub. A Christmas Mystery: The Story of Three Wise Men; also Somon the Jester; also Viviette. In 1911 he pub. The Glory of Clementina Wing; also Idols. In 1912 he pub. The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol. In 1913 he pub. Stella Maris; beautiful crippled young heiress Stella Maris and homely orphaned maid Unity Blake fall in love with the latter's boss John Risca, and Unity makes the ultimate sacrifice; filmed in 1918. In 1914 he pub. The Fortunate Youth. In 1915 he pub. Jaffrey. In 1916 he pub. Faraway Stories; also The Wonderful Year. In 1917 he pub. The Red Planet. In 1918 he pub. The Rough Road. In 1920 he pub. The House of Baltazar. In 1922 he pub. The Tale of Triona. In 1923 he pub. The Lengthened Shadow; also Moordius & Co.. In 1924 he pub. The Golden Journey of Mr. Paradyne; also The Coming of Amos. In 1925 he pub. The Great Pandolfo. In 1926 he pub. Perella; also The Mountebank; also The Old Bridge. In 1927 he pub. Stories Near and Far; also The Kingdom of Theophilus. In 1928 he pub. Joshua's Vision. In 1930 he pub. The Town of Tombarel; also The Shorn Lamb.
In 1894 Paris-born Punch cartoonist George Louis Palmella Busson du Maurier (1834-96) (grandfather of Daphne du Maurier) pub. Trilby, a bestseller (200K in the U.S.) about 1850s bohemian Paris, illustrated by the author; coins the term "Svengali" for the evil Jewish musical genius who turns half-Irish working girl Trilby O'Ferrall into a diva through hypnosis; the London stage production features narrow-brimmed "crumpled" soft felt hats with indented crowns, which become known as trilby hats (trilbys).
In 1894 East End, London-born Arthur George Morrison (1863-1945) pub. Martin Hewitt: Investigator. In 1895 he pub. Chronicles of Martin Hewitt. In 1896 he pub. Adventures of Martin Hewitt: Third Series; also A Child of the Jago; the horrible violent living conditions in East End, London. In 1899 he pub. To London Town. In 1902 he pub. The Hole in the Wall. In 1904 he pub. The Green Eye of Goona (The Green Diamond).
In 1894 Kingstown-born Henry De Vere Stacpoole (1863-1951) pub. his first novel The Intended. In 1895 he pub. Pierrot! A Story. In 1897 he pub. Death, the Knight,and the Lady: A Ghost Story. In 1899 he pub. The Doctor: A Study from Life; also The Rapin (Toto: A Parisian Sketch). In 1901 he pub. The Bourgeois. In 1902 he pub. The Lady-Killer. In 1906 he pub. Fanny Lambert; also The Golden Astrolabe. In 1907 he pub. The Meddler: A Novel of Sorts. In 1908 he pub. The Crimson Azaleas; also The Cottage on the Fells (Murder on the Fell); also Patsy: A Story; also The Man Without a Head; pub. under alias Tyer De Saix; also The Vulture's Prey; pub. under alias Tyler De Saix; also The Blue Lagoon; first in the Blue Lagoon Trilogy (1923, 1925); filmed in 1980; also The Reavers: A Tale of Wild Adventure on the Moors of Lorne. In 1909 he pub. Garryowen: The Romance of a Race-Horse; also The Pools of Silence. In 1910 he pub. The Drums of War; also The Cruise of the King Fisher: A Tale of Deep-Sea Adventure. In 1911 he pub. The Ship of Coral: A Tropical Romance. In 1912 he pub. The Order of Release; also The Street of the Flute-Player: A Romance. In 1913 he pub. Molly Beamish; also Bird Cay; also The Children of the Sea: A Romance. In 1914 he pub. Father O'Flynn; also The New Optimism; also Monsieur de Rochefort: A Romance of Old Paris (The Presentation). In 1915 he pub. The Blue Horizon: Romance from the Tropics and the Sea; also The Pearl Fishers; also The Red Day. In 1916 he pub. The Reef of Stars: A Romance of the Tropics; also Corporal Jacques of the Foreign Legion. In 1917 he pub. In Blue Waters; also Sea Plunder; also The Starlit Garden:A Romance of the South (The Ghost Girl). In 1918 he pub. The Willow Tree: The Romance of a Japanese Garden; also The Man Who Lost Himself. In 1919 he pub. The Beach of Dreams: A Story of the True World; also Under Blue Skies. In 1920 he pub. A Man of the Islands; also Uncle Simon (The Man Who Found Himself). In 1921 he pub. Satan: A Story of the Sea King's Country. In 1922 he pub. Men, Women, and Beasts; also Vanderdecken: The Story of a Man. In 1923 he pub. The Garden of God; #2 in the Blue Lagoon Trilogy (1906, 1925). In 1924 he pub. Golden Ballast; also Ocean Tramps. In 1925 he pub. The House of Crimson Shadows; also The City in the Sea; also The Gates of Morning; also #3 in the Blue Lagoon Trilogy (1908, 1923). In 1926 he pub. Stories East and West: Tales of Men and Women. In 1927 he pub. The Mystery of Uncle Bollard; also Goblin Market. In 1928 he pub. Tropic Love; also Roxanne (The Return of Spring). In 1929 he pub. Eileen of the Trees; also The Girl of the Golden Reef: A Romance of the Blue Lagoon. In 1930 he pub. The Tales of Mynheer Amayat; also The Chank Shell: A Tropical Romance of Love and Treasure (The Island of Lost Women). In 1931 he pub. Pacific Gold. In 1932 he pub. Love on the Adriatic; also The Lost Caravan. In 1933 he pub. Mandarin Gardens; also The Naked Soul: The Story of a Modern Knight; also The Blue Lagoon Omnibus. In 1935 he pub. The Longshore Girl; also Green Coral (short stories). In 1936 he pub. The Sunstone. In 1937 he pub. Ginger Adams. In 1938 he pub. High-Yaller; also Old Sailors Never Lie an Other Tales of Land and Sea by One of Them. In 1939 he pub. The Longshore Girl; also Green Coral (short stories). In 1941 he pub. An American at Oxford. In 1943 he pub. Oxford Goes to War. In 1946 he pub. Harley Street. In 1947 he pub. The Story of My Village. In 1949 he pub. The Land of Little Horses; also The Man in Armour (last novel).
In 1894 Clondalkin, County Dublin-born Katharine Tynan (1861-1931) pub. A Cluster of Nuts, Being Sketches Among My Own People. In 1895 she pub. Three Fair Maids, or the Burkes of Derrymore. In 1899 she pub. The Dear Irish Girl.
In 1895 Grant Allen (1848-99) pub. The Woman Who Did; promotes the "New Woman", startling Victorian England with the example of an independent woman who has a child out of wedlock, causing English novelist Annie Sophie Cory to write The Woman Who Didn't; also The British Barbarians; time travel novel. He dies on Oct. 25, 1899 Haslemere, Surrey, leaving the unfinished novel Hilda Wade, dictating the final chapter to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle from his deathbed.
In 1895 Berdichev, Ukraine-born Joseph Conrad (Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski) (1857-1924) pub. his first novel Almayer's Folly; a trader in the Malaysian Archipelago and his halfcast daughter, and the pretentious house he builds; first of three novels with Capt. Lingard ("An Outcast of the Islands", "The Rescue"). In 1897 he pub. The Nigger of the Narcissus - the good ole days when you could get away with using the N-word? In 1899 he pub. Heart of Darkness. In 1900 he pub. Lord Jim. In 1901 he pub. Ford Madox Ford (1873-1939) pub. The Inheritors. In 1902 he pub. Typhoon; Capt. MacWhirr vs. a storm; also Heart of Darkness; originally pub. in "Blackwood's Mag." in 1899; English narrator Charles Marlow tries to rein in ivory trader Mr. Kurtz in Belgian Africa (Congo Free State); "The horror! The horror!" In 1903 he and Ford pub. Romance. In 1904 he pub. Nostromo. In 1906 he pub. The Informer: An Ironic Tale; also The Anarchist: A Desperate Tale. In 1907 he pub. The Secret Agent. In 1912 he pub. The Secret Sharer. In 1913 he pub. Chance; unpleasant poet Carleon Anthony is really Coventry Patmore (1823-96). In 1914 he pub. Chance. In 1915 he pub. Victory. In 1919 he pub. The Arrow of Gold. In 1920 he pub. The Rescue; Capt. Lingard must choose between love and duty. In 1923 he pub. The Rover.
In 1895 Ian Maclaren pub. the bestseller Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush.
In 1895 London-born Edward Phillips Oppenheim (1866-1946) ("Prince of Storytellers") pub. The Peer and the Woman; also A Daughter of the Marionis. In 1896 he pub. False Evidence; A Modern Prometheus; also The Mystery of Mr. Bernard Brown; also The Wooing of Fortune. In 1897 he pub. The Postmaster of Market Deighton; also The Amazing Judgment. In 1898 he pub. Mysterious Mr. Sabin; A Daughter of Astrea; As a Man Lives. In 1899 he pub. Mr. Marx's Secret; The Man and His Kingdom. In 1900 he pub. The World's Great Snare; A Millionare of Yesterday. In 1902 he pub. The Traitors. In 1903 he pub. The Yellow Crayon. In 1904 he pub. The Betrayal; Anna the Adventuress. In 1905 he pub. A Maker of History; also The Master Mummer. In 1906 he pub. A Lost Leader; also The Tragedy of Andrea; also The Malefactor (Mr. Wingrave, Millionaire). In 1907 he pub. Berenice; also The Avenger (The Conspirators). In 1908 he pub. The Great Secret; also The Governor; also The Distributors (Ghosts of Society) (pub. under alias Anthony Partridge); also The Missionier; also The Long Arm of Mannister (short stories). In 1909 he pub. The Kingdom of Earth (The Black Watcher) (pub. under alias Anthony Partridge); also Jeanne of the Marshes. In 1910 he pub. The Illustrious Prince; also Passers By; also The Lost Ambassador (The Missing Delora). In 1911 he pub. The Golden Web under alias Anthony Partridge; also The Moving Finger (A Falling Star); also Havoc. In 1912 he pub. The Court of St. Simon (pub. under alias Anthony Partridge); also The Lighted Way; also The Tempting of Tavernake; also Peter Ruff and the Double-Four (short stories); also For the Queen (short stories). In 1913 he pub. The Mischief Maker; also The Double Life of Mr. Alfred Burton; also Mr. Laxworthy's Adventures (short stories). In 1914 he pub. The Way of These Women; also A People's Man; also The Vanished Messenger; also The Amazing Partnership (short stories). In 1915 he pub. The Black Box; also The Double Traitor; also Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo; also An Amiable Charlatan (The Game of Liberty) (short stories). In 1916 he pub. The Hillman; also The Cinema Murder (The Other Romilly); also Mysteries of the Riviera (short stories). In 1918 he pub. The Pawns Count; also The Zeppelin's Passenger (Mr. Lessingham Goes Home). In 1919 he pub. The Wicked Marquis; also The Box with Broken Seals (The Strange Case of Mr. Jocelyn Thew); also The Curious Quest (The Amazing Quest of Mr. Ernest Bliss). In 1920 he pub. The Great Impersonation; also The Devil's Paw; also Aaron Rodd, Diviner (short stories); also Ambrose Lavendale, Diplomat (short stories); also Hon. Algernon Knox, Detective (short stories). In 1921 he pub. The Profiteers; also Jacob's Ladder; also Nobody's Man. In 1922 he pub. The Evil Shepherd; also The Great Prince Shan. In 1923 he pub. The Mystery Road; also The Seven Conundrums (short stories); also Michael's Evil Deeds (short stories); also The Inevitable Millionaires (short stories). In 1924 he pub. The Wrath to Come; also The Passionate Quest; also The Terrible HObby of Sir Joseph Londe (short stories). In 1925 he pub. Stolen Idols; Gabriel Samara, Peacemaker; The Adventures of Mr. Joseph P. Gray (short stories). In 1926 he pub. The Golden Beast; also Prodigals of Monte Carlo; also Harvey Garrard's Crime; also The Little Gentleman from Okehampstead (short stories). In 1927 he pub. The Interloper (The Ex-Duke); also Miss Brown of X.Y.O.; also The Channay Syndicate (short stories); also Mr. Billingham, the Marquis and Madelon (short stories); also Madame and Her Twelve Virgins (short stories); also Nicholas Goade, Detective (short stories). In 1928 he pub. The Light Beyond; also The Fortunate Wayfarer; also Matorni's Vineyard; also The Exploits of Pudgy Pete (short stories); also Chronicles of Melhampton (short stories). In 1929 he pub. The Treasure House of Martin Hews; also The Glenlitten Murder; also The Human Chase (short stories); also Jennerton & Co. (short stories); also What Happened to Forester (short stories). In 1930 he pub. The Million Pound Deposit; also The Lion and the Lamb; also Slane's Lost Shots (short stories). In 1931 he pub. Gangster's Glory (Inspector Dickens Retires); also Up the Ladder of Gold; also Simple Peter Cradd.; also Sinners Beware (short stories). In 1932 he pub. The Man from Sing Sing (Moran Chambers Smiled); also The Ostrekoff Jewels; also Crooks in the Sunshine (short stories). In 1933 he pub. The Ex-Detective; also Jeremiah and the Princess; also The Ex-Detective (short stories). In 1934 he pub. The Gallows of Chance; The Man Without Nerves (The Bank Manager); also The Stranger Boarders of Palace Crescent; also The Spy Paramount. In 1935 he pub. The Battle of Basinghall Street; also General Besserley's Puzzle Box (short stories). In 1936 he pub. Floating Peril (The Bird of Paradise); also The Magnificent Hoax (Judy of Bunter's Buildings); also Advice Limited (short stories); also Ask Miss Mott (short stories). In 1937 he pub. The Dumb Gods Speak; also Envoy Extraordinary; also The Mayor on Horseback; also Curious Happenings to the Rooke Legatees (short stories). In 1938 he pub. The Colossus of Arcadia; also The Spymaster; also A Pulpit in the Grill Room (short stories). In 1939 he pub. General Besserley's Second Puzzle Box (short stories); also And Still I Cheat the Gallows; also Sir Adam Disappeared; also Exit a Dictator; also The Strangers' Gate. In 1940 he pub. Last Train Out; also The Grassleyes Mystery (short stories).
In 1896 Wapping, London-born William Wymark Jacobs (1863-1943) pub. Many Cargoes (short stories); about "men who go down to the sea in ships of moderate tonnage" (Punch); big hit, launching his career. In 1897 he pub. The Skipper's Wooing. In 1898 he pub. Sea Urchins (More Cargoes) (short stories). In 1901 he pub. Light Freights (short stories). In 1902 he pub. The Monkey's Paw (short stories); At Sunwich Port (short stories); The Barge (short stories); Dialstone Lane (short stories); The Lady of the Minge (short stories); incl. The Toll House. In 1903 he pub. Odd Craft (short stories). In 1905 he pub. Captain's All (short stories). In 1907 he pub. Short Cruises (short stories). In 1908 he pub. Salthaven. In 1909 he pub. Sailor's Knots (short stories). In 1911 he pub. Ship's Company (short stories). In 1914 he pub. Night Watches (short stories); the night watchman on Wapping Wharf, who tells stories about Ginger Dick, Sam Small, and Peter Russett, who always arrive after a voyage with full pockets, only to be relieved of it all by the pop. of dockland London. In 1916 he pub. The Castaways. In 1919 he pub. Deep Waters (short stories). In 1926 he pub. Sea Whispers (short stories).
On May 26, 1897 Fairview, Ireland-born Abraham "Bram" Stoker (1847-1912) (distant relation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) pub. Dracula; original title "The Undead"; written at 6 Royal Crescent in the resort of Whitby in Yorkshire after eight years of research on vampire lit. incl. William Wilkinson's "An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia" and visits to Slains Castle in Aberdeenshire, Scotland and the Church of St. John the Baptist in Fairview, Ireland; inspired by Vlad III Dracula the Impaler (1428-77); Dracula leaves his castle in Transylvania and the Three Sisters to go to Victorian London on the Russian ship Demeter along with 50 boxes of dirt to find fresh blood, and is taken on by Prof. Abraham Van Helsing; Jonathan Harker, Arthur Holmwood, and victim Lucy Westenra, who "went to the window and looked out, but could see nothing, except a big bat"; spawns a series of films, starting with "Dracula" (1931), dir. by Tod Browning and starring Bela Lugosi. In 1914 his widow Florence Stoker (1858-1937) pub. Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Stories.
In 1897 Kingston, Surrey-born John Galsworthy (1867-1933) pub. From the Four Winds (short stories) under the alias John Sinjohn. In 1906 he pub. The Silver Box; also The Man of Property; first in the Forsyte Saga trilogy (1906-22). In 1921 he pub. A Family Man. In 1924 he pub. The White Monkey. In 1925 he pub. The Silver Spoon. In 1928 he pub. Swan Song.
In 1897 Paris-born William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) pub. Liza of Lambeth. In 1902 he pub. Mrs. Craddock. In 1908 he pub. The Magician; Oliver Haddo attempts to create life; filmed in 1926 by Rex Ingram; Aleister Crowley pub. a rebuttal in Vogue, claiming it's really him, causing book sales to flourish. In 1915 he pub. Of Human Bondage; his masterpiece, about fool-for-love club-footed physician Philip Carey; title is a quote from Spinoza; panned by critics until Theodore Dreiser compares it to a Beethoven symphony. In 1919 he pub. The Moon and Sixpence; roman a clef about Paul Gaugin. In 1921 he pub. The Trembling of a Leaf (short stories); incl. Miss Thompson, about a a missionary who tries to reform a ho, dramatized in 1923 as "Rain". In 1925 he pub. The Painted Veil. In 1926 he pub. The Casuarina Tree. In 1928 he pub. Ashenden, or the British Secret Agent (short stories). In 1930 he pub. Cakes and Ale; satire of novelists Hugh Walpole (Alroy Kear) and Thomas Hardy (Edward Driffield); Edward's barmaid 1st wife Rosie is based on Maugham's only lover (unknown) "Nan". In 1931 he pub. First Person Singular. In 1932 he pub. The Narrow Corner; also For Services Rendered. In 1933 he pub. Ah King. In 1944 he pub. The Razor's Edge. In 1948 he pub. Catalina. In 1949 he pub. Quartet (short stories).
In 1897 County Down, Ireland-born Amanda McKittrick Ros (1860-1939) pub. her first novel Irene Iddesleigh, about a young Canterbury lady who marries an older man, realizes she doesn't love him, and elopes with her tutor to the U.S., but he turns out to be a drunken abuser and she returns to England; incl. the famous soundbyte "Speak! Irene! Wife! Woman! Do not sit in silence and allow the blood that boils in my veins to ooze through cavities of unrestrained passion and trickle down to drench me with its crimson hue!"; establishes her as the queen of horrible prose, gaining her fans incl. Mark Twain, Aldous Huxley, and Lord Beveridge after a 1898 review by Barry Pain in the London journal Black & White contains the soundbyte: "The book has not amused. It began by doing that. Then, as its enormities went on getting more and more enormous in every line, the book seemed something titanic, gigantic, awe-inspiring. The world was full of Irene Iddesleigh" - the Tiny Tim of novelists? In 1898 she pub. Delina Delaney; makes her enough money to buy her home Iddesleigh; "Have you ever visited that portion of Erin's plot that offers its sympathetic soil for the minute survey and scrutinous examination of those in political power, whose decision has wisely been the means before now of converting the stern and prejudiced, and reaching the hand of slight aid to share its strength augmenting its agricultural richness?"; "I first read this sentence nearly three years ago. Since then, I have read it once a week in an increasingly desperate search for meaning, but I still don't understand it." (Nick Page)
In 1898 Enoch Arnold Bennett (1867-1931) pub. his first novel The Man from the North. In 1902 he pub. The Grand Babylon Hotel; also Anna of the Five Towns. In 1903 he pub. The Gates of Wrath; also Leonora. In 1904 he pub. A Great Man; Teresa of Watling Street. In 1905 he pub. Sacred and Profane Love (The Book of Carlotta); Tales of the Five Towns (short stories). In 1905 he pub. Whom God Hath Joines; also Hugo. In 1907 he pub. The Grim Smile of the Five Towns (short stories); also The Ghost: A Modern Fantasy. In 1908 he pub. Buried Alive; also The Old Wives' Tale. In 1910 he pub. Clayhanger; also Helen with a High Hand (The Miser's Niece). In 1911 he pub. Hilda Lessways. In 1912 he pub. The Matador of the Five Towns (short stories). In 1913 he pub. The Regent. In 1914 he pub. The Price of Love. In 1916 he pub. These Twain. In 1918 he pub. The Pretty Lady; also The Roll-Call. In 1922 he pub. Mr. Prohack. In 1923 he pub. Riceyman Steps; a miserly 2nd-hand bookseller starves himself to death. In 1925 he pub. The Clayhanger Family (3 vols.). In 1927 he pub. The Woman Who Stole Everything and Other Stories. In 1928 he pub. The Strange Vanguard. In 1929 he pub. Imperial Palace. In 1931 he pub. Venus Rising from the Sea.
In 1898 India-born Eden Phillpotts (1862-1960) pub. Children of the Mist; first of 18 novels about Dartmoor, England.
In 1898 St. Ives-born Theodore Watts-Dunton (1832-1914) pub. Aylwin, a bestseller about the Romany (Gypsies).
In Oct. 1899 Edinburgh, Scotland-born Helen Bannerman (Helen Brodie Cowan Watson) (1862-1946) pub. her first book The Story of Little Black Sambo, about Tamil children in SE India, where she lives with her husband; Sambo, son of Black Jumbo and Black Mumbo outwits hungry tigers by giving them his new red coat, blue trousers, purple shoes, and umbrella and letting them chase each other around a tree until they turn into ghee, then recovers his things and runs home, eating 169 pancakes for supper made by Black Mumbo from the ghee; the book becomes a hit with children and is widely pirated; too bad, the word "sambo" becomes a racial slur, and in 1932 Langston Hughes calls it a typical "pickaninny" storybook that harms black children, causing the book to be increasingly banned until extensive revisions rescue it; she follows with "The Story of Little Black Mingo" (1901), "The Story of Little Black Quibba" (1902), "Little Black Quasha" (1908), "The Story of Little Black Bobtail" (1909), and "Sambo and the Twins" (1936); in 1965 her daughter Day (1896-) pub. "Little White Squibba", a rewrite with a white girl as heroine.
In 1900 Blenheim-born Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965) pub. his only novel Savrola.
In 1900 Bromsgrove, Worcestershire-born Laurence Housman (1865-1959) pub. An Englishwoman's Love Letters. In 1904 he pub. Sabrina Warham. In 1908 he pub. The Sheepfold.
In 1901 Arthur Christopher Benson (1862-1925) (son of Canterbury Archbishop Edward White Benson) pub. The House of Quiet.
In 1901 Ochiltree, Ayrshire-born George Douglas Brown (1869-1902) pub. The House with the Green Shutters under alias George Douglas.
In 1901 William Babington Maxwell (1866-1938) (son of Mary Elizabeth Braddon) pub. The Countess of Maybury. In 1903 he pub. Fabulous Fancies. In 1904 he pub. The Ragged Messenger. In 1905 he pub. Vivien. In 1906 he pub. The Guarded Flame. In 1907 he pub. Hill Rise. In 1909 he pub. Seymour Charlton. In 1910 he pub. The Rest Cure. In 1911 he pub. Mrs. Thompson. In 1912 he pub. In Cotton Wool. In 1913 he pub. The Devil's Garden; also General Mallock's Shadow. In 1919 he pub. Glamour; also A Man and His Lesson; also Life Can Never Be the Same. In 1920 he pub. A Remedy Against Sin. In 1922 he pub. A Little More; also Spinster of This Parish. In 1924 he pub. Elaine at the Gates. In 1925 he pub. Life: A Study of Self. In 1926 he pub. Gabrielle. In 1927 he pub. Fernande. In 1928 he pub. We Forget Because We Must: A Story of Decades and Lustres. In 1929 he pub. Himself and Mr. Raikes; also The Man Who Pretended. In 1930 he pub. To What Green Altar? In 1933 he pub. This is My Man. In 1934 he pub. The People of a House; also And Mr. Wyke Bond.
In 1901 West Indies-born sci-fi novelist Matthew Phipps Shiel (1865-1947) pub. The Purple Cloud.
In 1902 Dulwich, London-born Alfred Edward Woodley "A.E.W." Mason (1865-1948) pub. The Four Feathers, about British officer Harry Faversham, who resigns from the Royal North Surrey Regiment to avoid taking on the Mahdi in Sudan in 1882, causing his men and fiance Ethne Eustace to hand him you know what to signify cowardice, causing him to redeem himself; filmed in 1939. In 1910 he pub. At the Villa Rose, introducing Inspector Hanaud, used by Agatha Christie as a model for Hercule Poirot.
In 1902 South Kensington, Middlesex-born Helen Beatrix Potter (1866-1943) pub. The Tale of Peter Rabbit, a bestseller (45M copies); loses his jacket and shoes to Farmer McGregor while his siblings Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail stay safely at home; he escapes and returns home to his mother, who puts him to bed and gives him camomile tea; The Tale of Benjamin Buddy sees Peter retrieve his lost duds.
In 1903 London-born Protestant future Irish nationalist rebel Robert Erskine Childers (1870-1922) pub. The Riddle of the Sands; predicts a German invasion of Britain.
In 1904 Belfast, Ireland-born George A. Birmingham (1865-1950) pub. The Seething Pot. In 1906 he pub. Hyacinth; Hyacinth Conneally converts from Protestantism to Catholicism, becoming an Irish nationalist, then mellows out. In 1907 he pub. The Northern Iron; also Benedict Kavanagh. In 1908 he pub. Spanish Gold. In 1909 he pub. The Search Party. In 1911 he pub. Lalage's Lovers. In 1912 he pub. The Red Hand of Ulster; an Irish-Am. millionaire leads a Protestant rebellion in Ulster; General John Regan; a returning Yankee raises an Irish natonalist monument to a non-existent Irish hero. In 1913 he pub. Adventures of Dr. Whitty; also Irishmen All. In 1930 he pub. Wild Justice.
In 1904 Kensington, London-born Gilbert Keith "G.K." Chesterton (1874-1936) ("the Prince of Paradox") pub. The Napoleon of Notting Hill; set in 1984 London, when the govt. doesn't care. In 1905 he pub. The Club of Queer Trades (short stories). In 1908 he pub. The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare; about anarchists and spies, with a Roman Catholic moral; inspires Michael Collins with the idea that "If you didn't seem to be hiding nobody hunted you out." In 1909 he pub. The Club of Queer Trades (short stories); also The Ball and the Cross. In 1911 he pub. The Innocence of Father Brown, introducing amateur detective Father Brown, who is featured in 53 short stories pub. in 1910-36, based on Bradford, Yorkshire parish priest John Monsignor O'Connor (1870-1952), who helps him convert from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism in 1922; first of a series; "The miracle book of 1911" - Saturday Evening Post. In 1914 he pub. The Flying Inn; the Ottoman Empire conquers Britain and imposes Sharia. In 1935 he pub. The Scandal of Father Brown.
In 1904 Westminster, London-born Oscar Wilde wannabe (open gay alcoholic and marijuana smoker) Arthur Annesley Ronald Firbank (1886-1926) pub. The Fairies Wood; also The Mauve Tower. In 1905 he pub. Impression d'Automne; also Odette d'Antrevernes; also A Study in Temperament. In 1908 he pub. Lady Appledore's Mesalliance: An Artificial Pastoral. In 1915 he pub. The Artificial Princess; also Vainglory. In 1916 he pub. Inclinations. In 1917 he pub. Caprice. In 1919 he pub. Valmouth; a seaside spa in SW England that attracts wealthy centenarians with its pure air, allowing them to engage in eroticism and exoticism. In 1923 he pub. The Flower Beneath the Foot. In 1924 he pub. Prancing Nigger (Sorrow in Sunlight); also Concerning the Eccentricities of Cardinal Pirelli; also The New Rythum.
In 1904 Goonestone, Kent-born Montague Rhodes "M.R." James (1862-1936) pub. Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, launching the genre of the antiquarian ghost story. In 1911 he pub. More Ghost Stories. In 1919 he pub. A Thin Ghost and Others. In 1925 he pub. A Warning to the Curious and Other Ghost Stories.
In 1904 Kent-born poet Walter John de la Mare (1873-1956) pub. Henry Brocken. In 1910 he pub. The Return. In 1921 he pub. Memoirs of a Midget. In 1946 he pub. The Traveler.
In 1904 Cheapside, London-born Frederick William Serafino Austin Lewis Mary Rolfe (1860-1913) (AKA Baron Corvo) pub. Hadrian the Seventh; Englishman George Arthur Rose is elected pope and tries to save the world. In 1905 he pub. Don Tarquinio. In 1907 he pub. Don Renato. In 1909 he pub. The Desire and Pursuit of the Whole. In 1912 he pub. The Weird of the Wanderer. In 1926 In His Own Image is pub. posth. In 1929 The Bull Against the Enemy of the Anglican Race is pub. posth., followed in 1935 by Hubert's Arthur, the story of Duke Arthur I of Britanny, who died mysteriously in 1203, only this time his warden Hubert de Burgh spirits him away to the Holy Land, where he becomes king of Jerusalem and returns to defeat his bad uncle John I and kill his son Henry III, going on to become the new King Arthur; too bad, it's anti-Semitic so it's never reprinted?
In 1905 St. Marylebone, London-born Edward Morgan Forster (1879-1970) pub. his first novel Where Angels Fear to Tread; unusual maturity of style for such a young whippersnapper? In 1907 he pub. The Longest Journey; lame Rickie Elliott, his ugly wife Agnes Pembroke, and his wild half-brother Stephen Wonham. In 1908 he pub. A Room with a View; Lucy's vacation in C Italy at the Pensione Bertolini becomes a contest between Anglo-Saxon sex guilt and upper-class prejudice vs. hot-blooded Latin passion. In 1909 he pub. The Machine Stops; the whole world turns into hermits who communicate only through the Machine. In 1910 he pub. Howards End; the Bohemian intellectual Schlegel sisters and their relationship to the thoughtless plutocrat Wilcox family and struggling lower-middle Basts in repressed Edwardian England. In 1911 he pub. The Celestial Omnibus (short stories). In 1913 he pub. Maurice; about homosexuality; pub. posth. in 1971. In 1924 he pub. A Passage to India; based on his 1922 trip to India; Dr. Aziz; "For so young a man he had read largely; the themes he preferred were the decay of Islam and the brevity of love." In 1928 he pub. The Eternal Moment (short stories).
In 1906 Rugby, Warwickshire-born Emilie Rose Macaulay (1881-1958) pub. her first novel Abbots Verney. In 1907 she pub. The Furnace. In 1909 she pub. The Secret River. In 1911 she pub. The Valley Captives. In 1912 she pub. Views and Vagabonds. In 1913 she pub. The Lee Shore. In 1916 she pub. Non-Combatants and Others. In 1919 she pub. Three Days. In 1920 she pub. Potterism. In 1921 she pub. Dangerous Ages. In 1922 she pub. Mystery at Geneva: An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings. In 1923 she pub. Told by an Idiot. In 1924 she pub. Orphan Island. In 1926 she pub. Crewe Train. In 1928 she pub. Keeping Up Appearances. In 1930 she pub.Staying with Relations. In 1937 she pub. I Would Be Private. In 1940 she pub. And No Man's Wit. In 1950 she pub. The World My Wilderness.
In 1907 London-born James Elroy Flecker (1884-1915) pub. The Bridge of Fire. In 1908 he pub. The Last Generation: A Story of the Future. In 1914 he pub. The King of Alsander.
In 1908 Berlin-born Ludwig Lewisohn (1882-1955) pub. The Broken Snare. In 1909 he pub. A Night in Alexandria.
In 1908 Erin's Isle-born William McFee (1881-1966) pub. Letters from an Ocean Tramp. In 1916 he pub. Casuals of the Sea. In 1919 he pub. Aliens. In 1920 he pub. Captain Macedoine's Daughter; also A Six Hour Shift. In 1922 he pub. Harbours of Memory; also Command. In 1924 he pub. Race. In 1925 he pub. Sunlight in New Granada. In 1926 he pub. Swallowing the Anchor. In 1928 he pub. Pilgrims of Adversity. In 1930 he pub. North of Suez. In 1931 he pub. Sailors of Fortune. In 1932 he pub. The Harbourmaster. In 1933 he pub. No Castle in Spain. In 1935 he pub. The Beachcomber. In 1936 he pub. Sailor's Bane. In 1938 he pub. The Derelicts. In 1940 he pub. The Watch Below; also Spenlove in Arcady. In 1944 he pub. Ship to Shore. In 1946 he pub. In the First Watch. In 1949 he pub. Family Trouble. In 1950 he pub. The Law of the Sea. In 1952 he pub. The Adopted.
In 1909 Wood Green, London-born Frank Arthur Swinnerton (1884-1982) pub. his first novel The Merry Heart. In 1910 he pub. The Young Idea. In 1911 he pub. The Casement. In 1912 he pub. The Happy Family. In 1914 he pub. On the Staircase. In 1916 he pub. The Chaste Wife. In 1917 he pub. Nocturne; his first hit. In 1918 he pub. Shops and Houses. In 1919 he pub. September. In 1921 he pub. Coquette. In 1922 he pub. The Three Lovers. In 1923 he pub. Young Felix.
In 1925 he pub. The Elder Sister. In 1926 he pub. Summer Storm. In 1927 he pub. Tokefield Papers. In 1928 he pub. A London Bookman; also A Brood of Ducklings. In 1929 he pub. Sketch of a Sinner. In 1932 he pub. The Georgian House. In 1937 he pub. Harvest Comedy. In 1941 he pub. The Fortunate Lady. In 1942 he pub. Thankless Child. In 1944 he pub. A Woman in Sunshine. In 1946 he pub. English Maiden. In 1948 he pub. The Cats and Rosemary; also Faithful Company. In 1949 he pub. The Doctor's Wife Comes to Stay. In 1950 he pub. A Flower for Catherine. In 1951 he pub. The Bookman's London. In 1952 he pub. Master Jim Probity; also Londoner's Post. In 1953 he pub. A Month in Gordon Square.In 1909 Auckland, New Zealand-born Hugh Seymour Walpole (1884-1941) The Wooden Horse. In 1910 he pub. Maradick at Forty. In 1911 he pub. Mr. Perrin and Mr. Trail. In 1912 he pub. The Prelude to Adventure. In 1913 he pub. Fortitude. In 1914 he pub. The Duchess of Wrexe. In 1915 he pub. The Golden Scarecrow. In 1916 he pub. The Chaste Wife. In 1918 he pub. The Green Mirror. In 1919 he pub. Jeremy; also The Secret City. In 1920 he pub. The Captives. In 1921 he pub. The Thirteen Travellers. In 1922 he pub. The Cathedral; also The Young Enchanted. In 1923 he pub. Jeremy and Hamlet. In 1924 he pub. The Old Ladies. In 1925 he pub. Portrait of a Man with Red Hair. In 1926 he pub. Harmer John. In 1930-3 he pub. The Herries Chronicle. In 1931 he pub. Judith Paris. In 1932 he pub. Fortress. In 1933 he pub. Vanessa. In 1935 he pub. The Inquisitor. In 1937 he pub. John Cornelius. In 1939 he pub. The Inquisitor. In 1940 he pub. The Bright Pavilions.
In Feb. 1910 the Dreadnought Hoax sees English super-hoaxer William Horace de Vere Cole (1881-1936) get the British to officially greet a group of Abyssinian princes accompanied by high-ranking Foreign Office rep. Herbert Cholmondeley (pr. CHUM-lee) with a good part of the British fleet in Weymouth Bay in Dorsetshire, incl. HMS Dreadnought, and to have crowds see off their train as they return to London; later it is revealed that the princes, who like to say "Bunga-bunga", are phonies in makeup applied by Sarah Bernhardt's makeup man Willy Clarkson, incl. writer Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), artist Duncan Grant, cricketer Anthony Buxton, judge's son Guy Ridley, and Virginia's brother Adrian Stephen (the "interpreter"), also that Cholmondeley is Cole. In 1912 Lit. dynamo Adeline Virginia Stephen, known for sexual abuse by half-brothers and nervous breakdowns caused by the deaths of her mother, half-sister Stella and daddy Sir Leslie Stephen marries London ed. ("penniless Jew") Leonard Sidney Woolf (1880-1969), becoming "Who's Afraid of" Virginia Woolf (1882-1941); together they set up a hand press for publishing limited eds. of modern lit., which develops into Hogarth Press in 1917; they live at 46 Gordon Square in the Bloomsbury section of London (near the British Museum), and set up the Bloomsbury Group, incl. E.M. (Edward Morgan) Forster (1879-1970), John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), Bertrand Arthur William Russell (1872-1970), Giles Lytton Strachey (1880-1932), Duncan James Corrow Grant (1885-1978), Arthur Clive Heward Bell (1881-1964), and Saxon Sydney-Turner (1880-1962); the 1910 Dreadnought Hoax was a dress rehearsal?; the members like to engage in homosexuality, lesbianism, and wife-swapping. Robert Frost (1874-1963) sails to England and embarks on a lit. career. Mary Pickford introduces D.W. Griffith to her friends Dorothy and Lillian Gish, and he signs them up for "An Unseen Enemy"; one or both go on to star in 100+ short films and features.
In 1910 London-born Alan Alexander "A.A." Milne (1882-1956) pub. The Day's Play. In 1917 he pub. Once on a Time. In 1920 he pub. Mr. Pym Passes By. In 1922 he pub. The Red House Mystery; first mystery to use light humor as an important feature? On Oct. 14, 1926 he pub. Winnie-the-Pooh in London; original name Edward Bear; friends incl. Piglet, Eeyore (whose tail Christopher Robin reattached with a nail), Owl, Rabbit, Kanga and her son Roo; written for his son Christopher Robin Milne (1920-96); the book's success causes the name "Christopher" (Gr. "bearer or carrier of Christ") to become popular by the 1940s; "What's for breakfast?"; "'We'll be Friends Forever, won't we, Pooh?' asked Piglet. 'Even longer', Pooh answered"; "PLES RING IF AN RNSER IS REQUIRD" (Owl's tree-house door). In 1927 he pub. Now We Are Six. In 1928 he pub. The House at Pooh Corner. In 1931 he pub. Two People.
In 1910 Birmingham-born Sax Rohmer (Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward) (1883-1959) anon. pub. his first novel Pause! In 1912 he pub. The Mystery of Dr. Fu Manchu; "Imagine a person, tall, lean and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan... one giant intellect, with all the resources of science past and present... Imagine that awful being, and you have a mental picture of Dr. Fu Manchu, the yellow peril incarnate in one man"; the good guys are white-is-right Sir Denis Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie.
In 1911 Ivy Compton-Burnett (1884-1969) pub. her first novel Dolores. In 1925 she pub. Pastors and Masters; introduces her unique style; "a work of genius" (New Statesman). In 1929 she pub. Brothers and Sisters. In 1931 she pub. Men and Wives. In 1933 she pub. More Women Than Men. In 1935 she pub. A House and Its Head. In 1937 she pub. Daughters and Sons. In 1939 she pub. A Family and a Fortune. In 1941 she pub. Parents and Children. In 1943 she pub. Elders and Betters. Elders and Betters. In 1947 she pub. Manservant and Maidservant (Bullivant and the Lambs). In 1949 she pub. Two Worlds and Their Ways. In 1951 she pub. Darkness and Day. In 1953 she pub. The Present and the Past.
In 1911 Eastwood, Nottinghamshire-born David Herbert Lawrence (1885-1930) pub. his first novel The White Peacock; a man marries the wrong woman. In 1912 he pub. The Trespasser. In 1913 he pub. Sons and Lovers (autobio. novel); first working class British novel? In 1915 he pub. The Rainbow; ruled obscene, making it more popular? In 1920 he pub. The Lost Girl. In 1921 he pub. Women in Love; the Brangwen sisters; artist Gudrun hooks up with industrialist Gerald Crich, while teacher Ursula hooks up with intellectual Rupert Birkin (Lawrence?), who end up in the Swiss Alps and get into male-male eroticism. In 1922 he pub. Aaron's Rod; Aaron Sisson. In 1923 he pub. The Ladybird; also Kangaroo. In 1926 he pub. The Plumed Serpent. In 1928 he pub. Lady Chatterley's Lover (AKA "Tenderness") (Florence, Italy) (July) (pub. in Paris in 1929); paralyzed impotent WWI vet John Thomas, er, Sir Clifford Chatterley and his frustrated wife Lady Constance Chatterley, who begins fooling around with studly gamekeeper Oliver Mellors ("Short and sharp, he took her, short and sharp and finished, like an animal"); its explicit sex makes it the perennial target of religious censors, and it is banned in the U.K. until 1960. In 1929 he pub. The Man Who Died (The Escaped Clock). In 1930 he pub. The Virgin and the Gypsy.
In 1911 Burma-born Saki (Hector Hugh Munro) (1870-1916) pub. the short story collection The Chronicles of Clovis; Clovis Sangrail. In 1914 he pub. Beasts and Super Beasts (short stories); also When William Came; portrays Britain as losing a war with Germany and being annexed as propaganda against appeasement. On Nov. 14, 1916 he is killed by a German sniper in a trench on the Somme Front in Beaucourt, France; last words: "Put that damned cigarette out." In 1923 he pub. The Toys of Peace (short stories) (posth.).
In 1912 Sui-Sin Far (Edith Maude Eaton) (1865-1914) Mrs. Spring Fragrance.
In 1912 West Hartlepool-born Sir Edward Montague Compton Mackenzie (1883-1972) (brother of actress Fay Compton) pub. Carnival. In 1913 he pub. The Passionate Elopement. In 1914 he pub. Sinister Street. In 1915 he pub. Guy and Pauline. In 1922 he pub. The Altar Steps. In 1924 he pub. Santa Claus in Summer; also The Old Men of the Sea. In 1928 he pub. Extraordinary Women. In 1937-45 he pub. The Four Winds of Love (8 vols.), his magnum opus. In 1941 he pub. The Monarch of the Glen. In 1947 he pub. Whisky Galore. In 1952 he pub. The Rival Monster.
In 1913 Littleton, N.H.-born Eleanor Hodgman Porter (1868-1920) pub. Pollyanna - couldn't have been honestly written after 1914? In 1915 she pub. Pollyanna Grows Up - I guess she could?
In 1914 Margate-born poet Bryher (Annie Winnifred Ellerman) (1894-1983) pub. Region of Lutany. In 1920 she pub. Development. In 1923 she pub. Two Selves. In 1925 she pub. West. In 1948 she pub. Beowulf. In 1952 she pub. The Fourteenth of October. In 1953 she pub. The Player's Boy.
On Aug. 4, 1914 - Nov. 11, 1918 the horrific World War I causes 15M deaths and 39M military casualties, and destroys the Old Order of white formerly Christian Europe. The U.S. played the Savior role, and lost a piddling number of troops compared to everybody else, and even after the horrific 1918 Spanish Influenza (Flu) Pandemic, you might call it lucky that it began to become the New Kid on the Block.
In 1915 Scottish-born John Buchan (1875-1940) pub. The Thirty-Nine Steps (The 39 Steps); thriller about Richard Hannay, who is being chased by Scotland Yard for a murder he didn't commit and has to catch the real killers, a German spy ring called you know what; filmed in 1935 by Alfred Hitchcock; "It must be some place where there were several staircases, and one marked out from the others by having 39 steps." In 1916 he pub. Greenmantle. In 1922 he pub. Huntingtower. In 1931 he pub. The Blanket of the Dark. In 1934 he pub. The Three Fishers.
In 1915 Shirley, Derbyshire-born John Cowper Powys (1872-1963) (descendant of William Cowper) pub. Wood and Stone. In 1916 he pub. Rodmoor; Adrian Sorio. In 1920 he writes After My Fashion, which isn't pub. until 1980. In 1925 he pub. Ducdame. In 1929 he pub. Wolf Solent. In 1933 he pub. A Glastonbury Romance. In 1935 he pub. Jobber Skald. In 1936 he pub. Maiden Castle. In 1937 he pub. Morwyn; or The Vengeance of God. In 1940 he pub. Owen Glendower; his life as seen through the eyes of his young relative Rhisiart ab Owen of Hereford. In 1951 he pub. Porius. In 1952 he pub. The Inmates.
In 1915 Abingdon, Oxfordshire-born Dorothy Miller Richardson (1873-1957) pub. her first novel Painted Roofs; Pt. 1 in the Pilgrimage series; first English stream-of-consciousness novel, beating James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. In 1935 she pub. Clear Horizon. In 1938 she pub. Pilgrimage.
In 1915 Kensington, Middlesex, London-born (Adeline) Virginia Woolf (nee Stephen) (1882-1941) (who likes to write standing up?) pub. her first novel The Voyage Out; stream-of-consciousness technique. In 1919 she pub. Night and Day. In 1921 she pub. Monday or Tuesday (short stories). In 1922 she pub. Jacob's Room. In 1925 she pub. Mrs. Dalloway (The Hours). In 1927 she pub. To the Lighthouse (U. of Okla. Press); visits by the Ramsay family to its summer home on the Isle of Skye; based on Godrevy Lighthouse in St. Ives, Cornwell, her childhood summer home. On Oct. 11, 1928 she pub. Orlando: A Biography, about a man born in the reign of Elizabeth I who decides to never grow old and changes into a woman, based on the life of lezzie lovers Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962) (as Orlando) and Violet Trefusis (1894-1972) (as Slavic princess Sasha); gets around censorship by having a woman sprout a you know what before going to bed with another woman?; after Vita left Violet in 1923, Violet hooked up with Singer sewing machine heiress and musical patron Winnaretta Singer (1865-1943) until 1933. On Oct. 24, 1929 English writer she pub. the essay A Room of One's Own, based on lectures delivered at Newnham College and Girton College, Cambridge U. in Oct. 1928, pleading for women's economic and intellectual independence in a patriarchal society; "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction"; "Give her a room of her own and five hundred a year, let her speak her mind and leave out half that she now puts in, and she will write a better book one of these days"; "Women have burnt like beacons in all the works of all the poets from the beginning of time. Indeed if woman had no existence save in the fiction written by men, one would imagine her a person of the utmost importance; very various; heroic and mean; splendid and sordid; beautiful and hideous in the extreme; as great as a man, some would say greater. But this is woman in fiction. In fact, as Professor Trevelyan points out, she was locked up, beaten and flung about the room. A very queer, composite being thus emerges. Imaginatively she is of the highest importance; practically she is completely insignificant. She pervades poetry from cover to cover; she is all but absent from history. She dominates the lives of kings and conquerors in fiction; in fact she was the slave of any boy whose parents forced a ring upon her finger. Some of the most inspired words and profound thoughts in literature fall from her lips; in real life she could hardly read; scarcely spell; and was the property of her husband"; "Then may I tell you that the very next words I read were these - 'Chloe liked Olivia...' Do not start. Do not blush. Let us admit in the privacy of our own society that these things sometimes happen. Sometimes women do like women"; narrated by the Four Marys, incl. Mary Beaton, Mary Seton, Mary Carmichael, and Mary Hamilton; the heroine Judith Shakespeare; disses dead English gay don Oscar Browning (1837-1923), claiming that he "was wont to declare 'that the impression left on his mind, after looking over any set of examination papers, was that... the best woman was intellectually the inferior of the worst man'"; after describing his thang for hot young men, she theorizes that "because Mr. Oscar Browning was a great figure in Cambridge at one time" his negative opinion of the intelligence of women would rub off on the fathers of the day and his words would be cited by them to dissuade their daughters from pursuing higher education. In 1933 she pub. Flush, a bio. of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's pet cocker spaniel. On Mar. 28, 1941 in Lewes, England she jumps in a body of water with a rock in her pocket after writing that "I am certain now that I am going mad again." In 1941 her last novel Between the Acts is pub. after her suicide.
In 1916 Rochester, Kent-born Phyllis Bottome (Phyllis Forbes Dennis) (1884-1963) (pr. buh-TOME) pub. her first novel The Dark Tower. In 1922 she pub. Kingfisher. In 1924 she pub. The Perfect Wife; also Life of Olive Schreiner. In 1929 she pub. Windlestraws. In 1933 she pub. The Advances of Harriet. In 1934 she pub. Private Worlds; the chief of a mental hospital has trouble with a female pshrink. In 1936 she pub. Level Crossing. In 1938 she pub. The Mortal Storm; Jewish girl tries to flee nasty Nazi Germany after her scientist daddy is imprisoned; big hit in isolationist U.S. In 1939 she pub. Danger Signal. In 1940 she pub. Masks and Faces. In 1941 she pub. Formidable to Tyrants; also London Pride; also Mansion House of Liberty. In 1942 she pub. The Heart of a Child. In 1943 she pub. Within a Cup; also Survival. In 1946 she pub. The Lifeline. In 1947 she pub. Innocence and Experience; also Search for a Soul. In 1950 she pub. Fortune's Finger; Under the Skin: Love Drew No Color Line When a White Woman Entered a Negro's World. In 1953 she pub. The Challenge.
In 1916 after taking up children's writing, County Longford, Ireland-born playwright-novelist Padraic Colum (Collumb) (1881-1972) pub. The King of Ireland's Son, a children's novel based on Irish folklore, about the King of Ireland's eldest son, who woos Fedelma, the Enchanter's Daughter only to see her kidnapped by the King of the Land of Mist. In 1918 he pub. The Children's Homer; also Adventures of Odysseus and the Tale of Troy. In 1920 he pub. The Boy Apprenticed to an Enchanter, and The Children of Odin. In 1923 he pub. Castle Conquer. In 1933 he pub. The Big Tree of Bunlahy: Stories of My Own Countryside (Newbery Medal); illustrated by Jack Yeats.
In 1916 Southend-on-Sea, Essex-born George Warwick Deeping (1877-1950) pub. The Return of the Petticoat. In 1925 he pub. Sorrel and Son; about the author's experiences in WWI; makes him an instant star, getting filmed 3x by 1984. In 1940 he pub. The Man Who Went Back. In 1946 he pub. The Impudence of Youth. In 1947 he pub. Laughing House.
In 1916 Hastings, Sussex-born Sheila Kaye-Smith (1887-1956) pub. Sussex Gorse: The Story of a Fight; Reuben Backfield in Peasmarsh Parish near Rye spends 60 years getting his hands on Boarzell Moor. In 1921 she pub. Joanna Godden. In 1923 she pub. The End of the House of Alard; bestseller. In 1936 she pub. Rose Deeprose. In 1940 she pub. Ember Lane. In 1942 she pub. The Secret Son. In 1945 she pub. Kitchen Fugue. In 1949 she pub. Happy Tree.
In 1917 Thuringen, Austria-born Scottish travel book writer George Norman Douglas (Douglass) (1868-1952) (son of John Sholto Douglas, who flees England after being charged with indecent assault on a 16-y.-o. boy in London for "kissing him and giving him some cakes and a shilling") pub. South Wind; Bishop Heard from the imaginary African island nation of Bampopo goes to the imaginary island of Nepenthe off the coast of Italy. In 1920 he pub. They Went. In 1927 he pub. In the Beginning. In 1929 he pub. Nerinda; also One Day.
In 1917 Douglas, County Cork, Ireland-born playwright Esme Stuart Lennox Robinson (1886-1958) pub. his first novel A Young Man from the South. In 1919 he pub. Eight Short Stories.
In 1917 London-born Alexander Raban "Alec" Waugh (1898-1981) pub. The Loom of Youth; autobio. novel about English public school life, incl. gay hanky-panky by the boys; causes the Old Shirburnian Society to expel him, making it more popular? In 1919 he pub. The Prisoners of Mainz. In 1921 he pub. Pleasure. In 1922 he pub. The Lonely Unicorn. In 1924 he pub. Card Castle. In 1925 he pub. Kept: A Story of Post-War London. In 1926 he pub. Love in These Days. In 1928 he pub. Nor Many Waters. In 1929 he pub. Three Score and Ten. In 1930 he pub. "Sir!", She Said. In 1931 he pub. Most Women; also So Lovers Dream. In 1932 he pub. Leap Before You Look; also No Quarter; also Thirteen Such Years. In 1933 he pub. Wheels Within Wheels. In 1936 he pub. Jill Somerset. In 1937 he pub. Eight Short Stories. In 1938 he pub. Going Their Own Ways. In 1941 he pub. No Truce with Time. In 1944 he pub. His Second War. In 1948 he pub. These Would I Choose; also Unclouded Summer. In 1951 he pub. Where the Clocks Chime Twice. In 1952 he pub. Guy Renton.
In 1918 Halifax, West Yorkshire-born Phyllis Eleanor Bentley (1894-1977) pub. The World's Bane (short stories). In 1922 she pub. Environment; first in her series of novels about life in West Yorkshire, England. In 1923 she pub. Cat in the Manger. In 1928 she pub. The Spinner of the Years; also The Partnership. In 1929 she pub. Carr. In 1930 she pub. Trio. In Mar. 1932 she pub. Inheritance; bestseller about the Oldroyds and Bamforths of Annotsfield and the textile industry in West Riding, Yorkshire, England in 1812, spawning two sequels ("The Rise of Henry Morcar", 1946, and "A Man of His Time", 1966), covering 153 years through the death of Winston Churchill in 1965, becoming the most popular regional novels since Thomas Hardy and his Wessex. In 1934 she pub. A Modern Tragedy. In 1936 she pub. Freedom Farewell; the fall of ancient Rome; her only non-Yorkshire novel. In 1941 she pub. Manhold. In 1946 she pub. The Rise of Henry Morcar; #2 in the Inheritance Trilogy. In 1947 she pub. The Rise of Henry Morcar. In 1948 she pub. Life Story. In 1951 she pub. Quorum. In 1952 she pub. Panorama. In 1953 she pub. The House of Moreys.
In 1918 Nova Scotia-born Percy Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957) (Am. father, English mother) pub. his first novel Tarr (The Egoist); modernist novel. In 1928 he pub. The Childermass; trilogy incl. "Monstre Gai" (1955), "Malign Fiesta" (1955); dead writer James Pullman helps Sammael (Satan) with his plan to undermine the Age of the Divine and substitute a "Human Age" where punishment is inflicted by modern industrial methods to handle a mass processing jam on the banks of the Styx River due to the slaughter of WWI and the flu epidemic. In 1930 he pub. The Apes of God; satirizes the London lit. scene. In 1937 he pub. The Revenge for Love; disses the Commies in Spain, claiming that English intellectuals are deluded; his best novel?
In 1918 London-born Rebecca West (Cicily or Cicely Isabel Andrews nee Fairfield) (1892-1983) (Irish father, Scottish mother) pub. her first novel The Return of the Soldier. In 1922 she pub. The Judge. In 1929 she pub. Harriet Hume. In 1935 she pub. The Harsh Voice: Four Short Novels. In 1936 she pub. The Thinking Reed. In 1939 she pub. The Harsh Voice: Four Short Novels.
In 1919 the James Tait Black Memorial Prize is founded for British lit. by Janet Coutts Black in memory of her publisher hubby James Tait Black; winners are chosen by a prof. of English lit. and his Ph.D. students; the first winner is Hugh Walpole for The Secret City, and Henry Festing Jones for Samuel Butler, Author of Erewhon (1835-1902); future winners incl. D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930), E.M. Forster (1884-1915), J.B. Priestley (1894-1984), Robert Ranke Graves (1895-1985), Aldous Huxley (1894-1963), Joyce Cary (1888-1957), and Graham Greene (1904-91).
In 1919 Daisy Ashford (1881-1972) pub. The Young Visiters, or Mr. Salteena's Plan; parody of upper-class society, written at age 9, discovered in her deceased mother's effects, and pub. with a preface by Sir James Barrie.
In 1919 Maidenhead, Berkshire, England-born Hugh John Lofting (1886-1947) pub. Dr. Doolittle; Dr. John Doolittle from Puddleby-on-the-Marsh talks to the animals after Polynesia the Parrot teaches him. Too bad, he emigrates to the U.S. in 1919. In 1921 he pub. The Apostle. In 1923 he pub. The Voyages of Dr. Doolittle.
In 1919 Charles Langbridge Morgan (1894-1958) pub. his first novel The Gunroom. In 1925 he pub. My Name is Legion. In 1929 he pub. Portrait in a Mirror. In 1932 he pub. The Fountain; bestseller. In 1936 he pub. Sparkenbroke. In 1940 he pub. The Voyage. In 1941 he pub. The Empty Room. In 1947 he pub. The Judge's Story. In 1949 he pub. The River Line; escaped British POWs in France in WWII. In 1951 he pub. A Breeze of Morning.
In 1919 Guildford, Surrey-born Pelham Grenville "Plum" Wodehouse (1881-1975) pub. Damsel in Distress. In 1923 he pub. The Inimitable Jeeves.
In 1920 Torquay, Devon-born Agatha Christie (Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan) (nee Miller) (1890-1976) pub. her first novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles, which introduces 5'4" Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, who retired from the Belgian police dept. in 1904, and relies on his "leetle gray cells" to solve crimes; also introduces Chief Inspector Japp and Captain Hastings; first of 80 novels and short story collections incl. 38 Hercule Poirot, 12 Miss Jane Marple, and five Thomas "Tommy" Beresford and Prudence "Tuppence" Cowley books, plus six under the alias Mary Westmacott, and 19 plays; praised by the Pharmaceutical Journal "for dealing with poisons in a knowledgeable way, and not with the nonsense about untraceable substances that so often happens." In 1922 she pub. The Secret Adversary; introduces Thomas "Tommy" Tuppence and Prudence "Tuppence" Cowley, who start out as blackmailers but find out that being detectives is more profitable. In 1923 she pub. The Murder on the Links; Hercule Poirot #2. In 1924 she pub. Poirot Investigates (short stories) (Mar.); Hercule Poirot #3; The Man in the Brown Suit (Aug.); Anne Beddingfeld and Col. Race in South Africa. In 1925 she pub. The Secret of Chimneys (June); Supt. Battle and Lady Eileen "Bundle" Brent. In 1927 she pub. The Big Four (Jan. 27) (short stories); Hercule Poirot #5; Hercule gets twin brother Achille Poirot; Countess Vera Rossakoff. In 1928 she pub. The Mystery of the Blue Train (Mar. 29); Hercule Poirot #6. In 1929 she pub. The Seven Dials Mystery (Jan. 24); Lady Eileen Brent, Lord Caterham, Bill Eversleigh, George Lomax, and Supt. Battle; also Partners in Crimes (short stories) (Sept. 16); Tommy and Tuppence Beresford #2. In 1930 she pub. The Mysterious Mr. Quin (short stories) (Apr. 14); Giant's Bread (Apr.); pub. under alias Mary Westmacott (#1); The Murder at the Vicarage (Oct.); who killed odious Col. Protheroe?; introduces Harris Tweed-loving elderly spinster amateur sleuth Miss Jane Marple, who lives in the village of St. Mary Mead and whose small maid is named Gwen; her nephew Raymond West is a writer; the first appearance of Miss Marple was in the Dec. 1927 short story "The Tuesday Night Club", which later becomes chap. 1 of "The Thirteen Problems" (1932); also introduces vicar Leonard Clement and his wife Griselda. On Sept. 7, 1931 she pub. The Sittaford Mystery (The Murder at Hazlemoore). In Feb. 1932 she pub. Peril at End House; Hercule Poirot #7; The Thirteen Problems (The Tuesday Club Murders) (June); Miss Marple #2; it was arsenic. In Sept. 1933 she pub. Lord Edgware Dies (Thirteen at Dinner); Hercule Poirot #8; The Hound of Death and Other Stories (Oct.); incl. The Witness for the Prosecution. On Jan. 1, 1934 she pub. Murder on the Orient Express; Hercule Poirot #9; her best work?; title changed to "Murder on the Stamboul Train" in the U.S. to avoid confusion with Graham Greene's 1932 novel "Orient Express"; inspired by a 1929 ride she took on the Orient Express, when it got caught in a snowbank, and written in the Hotel Pera Palace in Istanbul; 13 passengers, all suspected of killing the 14th, rich Mr. Ratchett, a notorious kidnapper and child murderer, and all having alibis from others who couldn't have been accomplices, with no mutual alibis, after which Hercule Poirot uncovers the most improbable solution, that they all conspired together to do it, which because Ratchett is such a rat he keeps to himself, along with a 2nd one of a lone killer who jumped the train, which he gives to the police after the train is unstuck; really an execution complete with a judge and 12-man jury?; a channeling of the JFK assassination, with the govt. judging and executing its chief executive, and producing the Lone Gunman Theory? also Unfinished Portrait (Mar.); pub. under the alias Mary Westmacott (#2); also Murder in Three Acts; also The Listerdale Mystery (short stories) (June); incl. Philomel Cottage; also Why Didn't They Ask Evans? (The Boomerang Clue) (Sept.); also Parker Pyne Investigates (Mr. Parker Pyne, Detective) (Nov.); detective Christopher Parker Pyne; introduces Ariadne Oliver and Miss Felicity Lemon; also Three Act Tragedy (Murder in Three Acts) (Hercule Poirot #10); Mr. Satterthwaite. On Mar. 10, 1935 she pub. Death in the Clouds (Air). On Jan. 6, 1936 she pub. The A.B.C. Murders; Hercule Poirot #11; also Murder in Mesopotamia (July 6); Hercule Poirot #12; also Cards on the Table (Nov. 2); Hercule Poirot #13; introduces Ariadne Oliver. On Mar. 15, 1937 she pub. Murder in the Mews and Other Stories (Dead Man's Mirror); Hercule Poirot #14; also Dumb Witness (Poirot Loses a Client) (July 5); also Hercule Poirot #15; also Death on the Nile (Nov. 1); Hercule Poirot #16. On May 2, 1938 she pub. Appointment with Death; Hercule Poirot #17; also Hercule Poirot's Christmas (Murder for Christmas) (A Holiday for Murder) (Dec. 19); Hercule Poirot #18. On June 5, 1939 she pub. Murder is Easy (Easy to Kill); Supt. Battle; also The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories; Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Parker Pyne; also And Then There Were None (Ten Little Niggers) (Nov. 6); her masterpiece?; big hit about 10 strangers who arrive at an isolated location and then mysteriously die one by one; filmed in 1945, 1965, 1974, 1987, 1989, and 2003 (as "Identity"). In Mar. 1940 she pub. Sad Cypress; Hercule Poirot #19; first Poirot courtroom drama; also One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (The Patriotic Murders) (An Overdose of Death) (Nov.); Hercule Poirot #20. In June 1941 she pub. Evil Under the Sun; Hercule Poirot #21. In Feb. 1942 she pub. The Body in the Library; Miss Marple; Five Little Pigs (Murder in Retrospect) (May); Hercule Poirot #22; The Moving Finger (July); Miss Marple. In June 1943 she pub. Towards Zero; last with Supt. Battle; also Absent in the Spring (Aug.); pub. under alias Mary Westmacott (#3); title from Shakespeare's Sonnet 98; also Death Comes at the End (Oct.); set in Thebes in 2000 B.C.E. In Feb. 1944 she pub. Sparkling Cyanide (Remembered Death); Col. Race. In 1946 she pub. The Hollow (Murder After Hours) (Nov.); Hercule Poirot #23; she later claims she ruined the novel by putting Poirot in it. In Sept. 1947 she pub. The Labours of Hercules; Hercule Poirot #24; he decides to end his career with 12 last cases. In Mar. 1948 she pub. Taken at the Flood (There is a Tide...); Hercule Poirot #25; also The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories; also The Rose and the Yew Tree (Nov.); pub. under alias Mary Westmacott (#4); title taken from "Four Quartets" by T.S. Eliot: "The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree/ Are of equal duration." In Mar. 1949 she pub. Crooked House; her personal favorite along with "Ordeal by Innocence" (1958). In 1950 she pub. Three Blind Mice and Other Stories; A Murder is Announced (June); Miss Marple. On Mar. 5, 1951 she pub. They Came to Baghdad; also The Under Dog and Other Stories. In Feb. 1952 she pub. Mrs. McGinty's Dead; Hercule Poirot #26; Ariadne Olivier begins to be a major player; also They Do It With Mirrors (Murder with Mirrors) (Nov. 17); Miss Marple; also A Daughter's Daughter (Nov. 24); pub. under alias Mary Westmacott (#5). In Mar. 1953 she pub. After the Funeral (Funerals Are Fatal); Hercule Poirot #27; A Pocket Full of Rye (Nov. 9); Miss Marple.
In 1920 Manchester-born Jewish poet Louis Golding (1895-1958) pub. his first novel Forward from Babylon. In 1932 he pub. Magnolia Street; bestseller set in the Hightown area of Manchester, England, which has a street divided into Jewish and gentile sides. In 1949 he pub. Honey for the Ghost.
In 1920 Paddington, London-born Cicely Mary Hamilton (Hammill) (1872-1952) pub. her first novel William, an Englishman. In 1922 she pub. Theodore Savage: A Story of the Past or the Future.
In 1920 Leigh, Lancashire-born James Hilton (1900-54) pub. his first novel Catherine Herself. In 1931 he pub. And Now Goodbye. In 1933 he pub. Lost Horizon; bestseller; Pocket Books #1; based on Christian Zeeman, a Dane who disappeared in Japan and became a monk in a Zen Buddhist monastery, and Nat. Geographic articles by Austrian-Am. botanist Joseph Rock (1884-1962); 37-y.-o. British consular official Robert Conway disappears into the utopian lamasery of Shangri-La in Tibet along with Mallinson, Chalmers Bryant (an Am. financier wanted for stock fraud posing as Barnard), and Miss Brinkow, a missionary, and is picked to be the new high lama to replace the 300-y.-o. one who is about to croak after uttering the soundbyte "You will have Time, that rare and lovely gift that your Western countries have lost the more they have pursued it"; filmed in 1937 starring Ronald Colman; the first Ballantine paperback Pocket Book to come out in 1939, starting the paperback rev. In June 1934 he pub. Goodbye, Mr. Chips; filmed in 1939. In 1941 he pub. Random Harvest. In 1946 he pub. So Well Remembered. In 1951 he pub. Morning Journey. In 1953 he pub. Time and Time Again.
In 1920 Kensington, London-born Denis George Mackail (1892-1971) pub. his first novel What Next?, becoming known as "the official chronicler of the domestic preoccupations of the upper middle class in London" (The Times). In 1921 he pub. Romance to the Rescue. In 1922 he pub. Bill the Bachelor. In 1923 he pub. According to Gibson; also Summertime. In 1924 he pub. The Majestic Mystery. In 1925 he pub. Greenery Street; based on Walpole St. in Chelsea, London; Ian and Felicity Foster. In 1926 he pub. The Fortunes of Hugo. In 1927 he pub. The Flower Show. In 1928 he pub. Tales from Greenery Street. In 1929 he pub. Another Part of the Wood; also How Amusing! In 1932 he pub. David's Day; also Ian and Felicity (Peninsula Place). In 1933 he pub. Having Fun; also Chelbury Abbey. In 1934 he pub. Summer Leaves. In 1935 he pub. The Wedding. In 1936 he pub. Back Again. In 1937 he pub. Jacinth. In 1938 he pub. London Lovers; also Morning, Noon and Night. In 1942 he pub. Life with Topsy. In 1943 he pub. Upside-down. In 1944 he pub. Ho! Or, How It All Strikes Me; also Tales for a Godchild. In 1945 he pub. Huddlestone House. In 1947 he pub. Our Hero; also We're Here! In 1949 he pub. By Auction; also Her Ladyship. In 1950 he pub. his last novel It Makes the World Go Round.
In 1920 Bodmin, Cornwall-born Herman Cyril McNeile (AKA Sapper) (1888-1937) pub. Bulldog Drummond; crime-solving British Capt. Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond, D.S.O., M.C., veteran of the WWI Loamshire Regiment; "His best friend would not call him good-looking but he possesses that cheerful type of ugliness which inspires immediate confidence"; big hit, causing him to pub. nine sequels.
In 1921 Wimbledon, London-born romance novelist Georgette Heyer (1902-74) (AKA Stella Martin) pub. The Black Moth.
In 1921 Godalming, Surrey-born Aldous (OG "old") Leonard Huxley (1894-1963) pub. his first novel Chrome Yellow. In 1923 he pub. Antic Hay; skepticism's effect on life. In 1924 he pub. Little Mexican and Other Stories (short stories). In 1925 he pub. Those Barren Leaves. In 1926 he pub. Two or Three Graces and Other Stories. In 1928 he pub. Point Counter Point. In 1930 he pub. Brief Candles (short stories). In 1932 he pub. Brave New World, which talks about the perfect drug Soma: "All the advantage of Christianity and alcohol; none of their defects." Inspired by a visit to the ICI Plastic Works in Billingham, England; takes place in 632 A.F. (After Henry Ford) (2540 C.E.); Thomas Tomakin, Henry Foster, Lenina Crowne, Mustapha Mond, Bernard Marx, John the Savage and his mother Linda; alphas, betas, and gammas; sex hormone gum; feely film is "Three Weeks in a Balloon" - is Lenina a soma-sucking slut? In 1936 he pub. Eyeless in Gaza. In 1939 he pub. After Many a Summer Dies the Swan. In 1944 he pub. Time Must Have a Stop; English teen poet Sebastian Barnack leaves his stingy Socialist dad and goes to Italy to visit wealthy Uncle Eustace, who gives him a Degas, which he trades for a tux, but when he dies he leaves no record of the gift, causing Sebastian to let others get framed then calls in Uncle Bruno to get it back, which he does, at great cost, with Bruno being imprisoned by the Fascist police, ruining his health, after which Sebastian nurses him. In 1948 he pub. Ape and Essence; apocalyptic novel about atomic war.
In 1921 Bedfordshire-born Robert Keable (1887-1927) pub. Simon Called Peter; semi-autobio. novel written in 12 days by a unhappily-married missionary in Bechuanaland; sells 300K copies with its plot about sex outside marriage being a sacrament.
In 1921 Brockley, London-born Henry William Williamson (1895-1977) pub. The Beautiful Years; #1 in the 4-vol. Willie Maddison series "The Flax of Dreams" (1921-8). In 1922 he pub. Dandelion Days. In 1924 he pub. The Dream of Fair Women. In 1927 he pub. Tarka the Otter: His Joyful Water-Life and Death in the Country of the Two Rivers; a cub grows up, fends for himself, and gets in a death struggle with dog Deadlock. In 1928 he pub. The Pathway. In 1929 he pub. The Wet Flanders Plain. In 1930 he pub. The Patriot's Progress. In 1952 he pub. Donkey Boy. In 1953 he pub. Young Phillip Maddison.
In 1922 Richmal Crompton (1890-1969) pub. Just William; 11-y.-o. scruffy English schoolboy William Brown, leader of the Outlaws, rivals of the Hubert Laneites; first of a series of 38 (ends 1970). In 1923 she pub. The Innermost Room.
In 1922 Warwickshire-born black magick occultist Aleister (Alexander Edward) Crowley (1875-1947) (pr. CROE-lee) ("Wickedest Man in the World") pub. The Diary of a Drug Fiend. In 1929 he pub. Moonchild.
In 1922 Adel, Leeds-born Eric Rucker (Rücker) Eddison (1882-1945) pub. The Worm Ouroboros; the war between King Gorice of Witchland and the Lords of Demonland on planet Mercury. In 1935 he pub. Mistress of Mistresses, first in the Zimiamvian Trilogy, incl. A Fish Dinner in Memison (1941), and The Mezentian Gate.
In 1922 Hendon, London-born Ben Travers (1886-1980) pub. A Cuckoo in the Nest. In 1923 he pub. Rookery Nook.
In 1922 Margery Williams pub. The Velveteen Rabbit or How Toys Become Real; illustrated by Sir William Nicholson (1872-1949); "He was fat and bunchy, as a rabbit should be; his coat was spotted brown and white, he had real thread whiskers, and his ears were lined with pink sateen"; loved to a nub, tossed out with the trash, and saved by a magic fairy?
In 1923 Ealing, London-born mystery novelist Margery Louise Allingham (1904-66) pub. Blackkerchief Dick. In 1929 she pub. The Crime at Black Dudley; introduces Albert Campion, an upper-class detective with connections with the govt. and the criminal world, whose asst. is ex-burglar servant Lugg; becomes a hit and spawns a series of 17 more novels. In 1952 she pub. The Tiger in the Smoke; Albert Campion chases serial killer Jack Havoc.
In 1923 Dublin-born Elizabeth Bowen (1899-1973) pub. her first novel Encounters. In 1936 she pub. The Death of the Heart.
In 1923 Edgbaston, Birmingham-born Mary Barbara Hamilton Cartland (1901-2000) pub. her first novel Jigsaw, followed by a torrent of 723 books pub. by 2000, making her the #1-selling novelist on Earth and the Queen of Romance.
In 1923 Edinburgh-born Naomi May Margaret Mitchison (1897-1999) (sister of J.B.S. Haldane) pub. her first novel The Conquered; set during Caesar's Gallic Wars. In 1925 he pub. Cloud Cuckoo Land; set during the Peloponnesian Wars. In 1931 she pub. The Corn King and the Spring Queen. In 1947 she pub. The Bull Calves; the 1745 Jacobite Rising.
In 1923 Oxford-born Dorothy Leigh Sayers (1893-1957) (pr. sehrs) pub. Whose Body?; the first of 11 Lord Peter Wimsey novels (a mixture of Fred Astaire and Bertie Wooster?); "My detective story begins brightly, with a fat lady found dead in her bath with nothing on but her pince-nez. Now why did she wear pince-nez in her bath? If you can guess, you will be in a position to lay hands upon the murderer." In 1926 she pub. Clouds of Witness; Lord Peter Wimsey #2, about Peter's elder brother the Duke of Denver, who is charged with the murder of their sister Lady Mary Wimsey. In 1927 she pub. Unnatural Death (The Singular Case of the Three Spinsters); Lord Peter Wimsey #3; an elder lady dies of cancer, but is it murder? In 1928 she pub. The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club; Lord Peter Wimsey #4; Gen. Fentiman and his sister die, and the heirs are cut out by Ann Dorland, causing Peter to be called in. In 1930 she pub. Strong Poison; Lord Peter Wimsey #5; he meets detective novelist Harriet Vane, whom he saves from a murder charge to marry. In 1931 she pub. Five Red Herrings (Suspicious Characters); Lord Peter Wimsey #6; painter Sandy Campbell is killed by somebody who paints in his style. In 1932 she pub. Have His Carcase; Lord Peter Wimsey #7 and Harriet Vane #2; title is a pun on Habeus Corpus. In 1933 she pub. Hangman's Holiday (short stories); also Murder Must Advertise; Lord Peter Wimsey #8. In 1937 she pub. Busman's Honeymoon; Lord Peter Wimsey #11 (last), Harriet Vane #4 (last); they finally get married but guess what?
In 1924 Wittlesey, Cambridgeshire-born Leslie Poles Hartley (1895-1972) pub. Night Fears (short stories). In 1925 he pub. his first novel Simonetta Perkins. In 1944 he pub. The Shrimp and the Anemone; #1 in the Eustace and Hilda Trilogy (ends 1947). In 1945 he pub. The West Window. In 1946 he pub. The Sixth Heaven; #2 in the Eustace and Hilda Trilogy. In 1947 he pub. Eustace and Hilda; #3 in the Eustace and Hilda Trilogy. In 1949 he pub. The Boat. In 1951 he pub. My Fellow Devils. In 1953 he pub. The Go-Between; "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there" (opening line).
In 1924 London-born Margaret Emma Faith Irwin (OE "boar friend") (1889-1967) pub. her first novel Still She Wished for Company. In 1925 she pub. These Mortals. In 1927 she pub. Knock Four Times. In 1928 she pub. Fire Down Below. In 1932 she pub. Royal Flush. In 1938 she pub. The Stranger Prince: The Story of Rupert of the Rhine. In 1939 she pub. The Bride: The Story of Louise and Montrose. In 1944 she pub. Young Bess; first in trilogy about Queen Elizabeth I (1944-53). In 1948 she pub. Royal Flush: The Story of Minette; Elizabeth, Captive Princess. In 1949 she pub. The Proud Servant: A Story of Montrose. In 1951 she pub. The Heart's Memory. In 1952 she pub. Hidden Splendour. In 1953 she pub. Elizabeth and the Prince of Spain; also None So Pretty: Or, the Story of Mr. Cork.
In 1924 London-born Margaret Moore Kennedy (Lady Davies) (1896-1937) pub. The Constant Nymph. In 1950 she pub. The Feast. In 1951 she pub. Lucy Carmichael. In 1952 she pub. Troy Chimneys. In 1953 she pub. The Ambassadress.
In 1924 Edinburgh-born Claude Cunningham Bruce Marshall (1899-1987) pub. his first novel This Sorry Scheme. In 1926 he pub. The Stooping Venus. In 1927 he pub. And There Were Giants...; also The Other Mary. In 1929 he pub. High Brows, an Extravagana of Manners - Mostly Bad; also The Little Friend. In 1930 he pub. The Rough House: A Possibility; also Children of This Earth. In 1931 he pub. Father Malachy's Miracle; Benedictine monk argues with Episcopalian rector about miracles, then proves his point by moving a dance hall from Glasgow onto Bass Rock in the Firth of Forth, which backfires on him. In 1934 he pub. Prayer for the Living. In 1935 he pub. The Uncertain Glory. In 1936 he pub. Canon to Right of Them. In 1937 he pub. Luckypenny.
In 1924 Mary Webb pub. Precious Bane; gloomy rustics on the Worcestershire-Shropshire border; gets a free plug from Worcestershire man PM Stanley Baldwin.
In 1925 children's writer Elinor M. Brent-Dyer (nee Gladys Eleanor May Dyer) (1894-1969) pub. The School at the Chalet; first in the Chalet School series (#58 in 1970); big hit with English schoolgirls.
In 1925 Wimbledon, London-born historical novelist Robert Ranke Graves (1895-1985) pub. My Head! My Head! In 1929 he pub. The Shout. In 1932 he pub. I, Claudius. about Roman emperor Claudius (-10 to 54). In 1933 he pub. The Real David Copperfield. In 1934 he pub. I, Claudius. about Roman emperor Claudius (-10 to 54). In 1935 he pub. Claudius the God and His Wife Messalina. In 1936 he pub. Antigua, Penny, Puce. In 1938 he pub. Count Belisarius; Byzantine emperor Justinian's main gen. Belisarius (505-65). In 1939 he pub. The Long Week-End. In 1940 he pub. Sergeant Lamb of the Ninth (Sergeant Lamb's America). In 1941 he pub. Proceed, Sergeant Lamb. In 1941 he and Alan Hodge pub. The Long Week-End. In 1942 he pub. The Story of Marie Powell: Wife to Mr. Milton. In 1943 he pub. The Story of Marie Powell: Wife to Mr. Milton. In 1944 he pub. Hercules, My Shipmate (The Golden Fleece). In 1946 he pub. King Jesus; he had a legitimate claim to the throne of Judah via Herod the Great? In 1949 he pub. The Islands (Isles) of Unwisdom; also Seven Days in New Crete (Watch the North Wind Rise); a society in the future has no war or hunger, and worships cruel goddess Mari until Edward Venn-Thomas teleports in and disrupts things. In 1952 he pub. Love for Lydia.
In 1926 Rushden, Northamptonshire-born Herbert Ernest Bates (1905-74) pub. his first novel The Two Sisters; also The Last Bread; also The Seekers. In 1939 he pub. My Uncle Silas. In 1944 he pub. Fair Stood the Wind for France. In 1947 he pub. The Purple Plain. In 1949 he pub. The Jacaranda Tree. In 1953 he pub. The Nature of Love.
In 1926 County Kildare, Ireland-born Molly Keane (Mary Nesta Skrine) (1905-96) pub. her first novel The Knight of Cheerful Countenance; in order to continue with "hunting and horses and having a good time", she uses the alias "M.J. Farrell" until 1981. In 1928 she pub. Young Entry. In 1929 she pub. Taking Chances. In 1931 she pub. Mad Puppetstown. In 1932 she pub. Conversation Piece. In 1934 she pub. Devoted Ladies. In 1935 she pub. Full House. In 1937 she pub. The Rising Tide. In 1941 she pub. Two Days in Aragon. In 1951 she pub. Loving Without Tears; socialite Angel copes with her son and daughter growing up. In 1952 she pub. Treasure Hunt; based on her 1949 play.
In 1926 Harrow on the Hill-born Communist lesbian Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893-1978) pub. Lolly Willowes; Or, The Loving Huntsman; an aging (lesbian?) spinster breaks from her family. In 1928 she pub. The True Heart. In 1936 she pub. Summer Will Show. In 1938 she pub. After the Death of Don Juan. In 1948 she pub. The Corner That Held Them.
In 1927 Pamela Frankau (1908-67) pub. Marriage of Harlequin. In 1928 she pub. The Fig Tree. In 1929 she pub. The Black Minute and Other Stories. In 1930 she pub. She and I. In 1931 she pub. Born at Sea; also Letter from a Modern Daughter to Her Mother; also The Devil We Know. In 1932 she pub. I Was the Man; also Women Are So Serious, and Other Stories. In 1933 she pub. The Foolish Apprentices; also A Manual of Modern Manners; also Walk into M Parlour. In 1934 she pub. Tassell-Gentle (Fly Now Falcon). In 1936 she pub. Villa Anodyne; also Fifty-Fifty and Other Stories. In 1937 she pub. Jezebel; also Some New Planet. In 1938 she pub. No News. In 1939 she pub. A Democrat Dies; also The Devil We Know. In 1948 she pub. Shaken in the Wind. In 1949 she pub. The Willow Cabin. In 1952 she pub. The Offshore Light. In 1953 she pub. The Winged Horse; also To the Moment of Triumph.
In 1927 Bourne End, Buckinghamshire-born Rosamond Lehmann (1901-90) pub. her first novel Dusty Answer; big hit about bi babe Ludith. In 1930 she pub. A Note in Music. In 1932 she pub. Invitation to the Waltz. In 1936 she pub. The Weather in the Streets. In 1944 she pub. The Ballad and the Source. In 1946 she pub. The Gypsy's Baby and Other Stories. In 1953 she pub. The Echoing Grove; filmed in 2002 as "Heart of Me" starring Helena Bonham-Carter.
In 1927 Liverpool-born Marguerite Steen (1894-1975) pub. her first novel The Gilt Cage. In 1941 she pub. The Sun is My Undoing.
In 1927 Ebergavenny, Monmouthshire-born Ethel Lina White (1876-1944) pub. her first novel The Wish-Bone. In 1929 she pub. Twill Soon Be Dark. In 1930 she pub. The Eternal Journey. In 1931 she pub. Put Out the Light (Sinister Light); launches her career as one of the top mystery thriller novelists in England. In 1932 she pub. Fear Stalks the Village. In 1933 she pub. Some Must Watch; a mute house servant is stalked by a killer; filmed as "The Spiral Staircase" (1946). In 1934 she pub. Some Must Watch; a mute house servant is stalked by a killer; filmed as "The Spiral Staircase" (1946). In 1935 she pub. The First Time He Died; also Wax. In 1936 she pub. The Wheel Spins; an elderly English governess witnesses something about the leader of a small Euro country that she shouldn't, and is kidnapped; filmed as "The Lady Vanishes" in 1938. In 1937 she pub. The Third Eye; also The Elephant Never Forgets. In 1938 she pub. Step in the Dark. In 1939 she pub. The First Time He Died; also Wax. In 1940 she pub. While She Sleeps. In 1941 she pub. She Faded into Air. In 1942 she pub. Midnight House (Her Heart in Her Throat); filmed as "The Unseen" (1945). In 1943 she pub. The Man Who Loved Lions (The Man Who Was Not There). In 1944 she pub. They See in Darkness.
In 1928 Singapore-born Leslie Charteris (Leslie Charles Bowyer-Yin) (1907-93) (Chinese father, English mother) pub. Meet - the Tiger!, which introduces "the Robin Hood of modern crime" Simon Templar (b. 1901), AKA "the Saint" (from his initials ST, and of course all his aliases have the same initials), who leaves a stick figure drawing of a man with a halo at the scene of his hits; he's really connected with the Knights Templars and the Sinclair family? In 1930 he pub. Enter the Saint, which is so much better than the 1928 novel that he begins calling it the start of the Saint series. In 1932 he emigrates to the U.S.
In 1928 Bournemouth-born lesbian Marguerite Radclyffe Hall (1880-1943) pub. The Well of Loneliness; lesbian novel about Englishwoman Stephen Gordon, who meets lover Mary Llewellyn in WWI and together experience the social wipeout zone; censored by the English govt.; based on the life of rich expatriate Am. lezzie Natalie Clifford Barney (1876-1972), lover of expatriate Am. lezzie Romaine Brooks (1874-1970) - the Barney without the Frank?
In 1928 Cheshire-born Christopher William Isherwood (1904-86) pub. All the Conspirators. In 1932 he pub. The Memorial. In 1935 he pub. Mr. Norris Changes Trains (The Last of Mr. Norris). He emigrates to the U.S. in 1939. In 1945 he pub. Prater Violet; also The Berlin Stories (The Berlin of Sally Bowles).
In 1928 London-born Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (1903-66) pub. his first novel Decline and Fall; Paul Pennyfeather is expelled from Oxford; based on his brother Alec Waugh, who was expelled from Sherborn College for homosexuality, causing Evelyn to be barred from admission and turn to writing; also The Last Chukka: Stories of East and West. In 1930 he pub. Vile Bodies, about London's smart set, the "bright young things" of the 1920s, who are into heavy drinking, drug use, sexual promiscuity, and bohemian lifestyle; Adam Fenwick-Symes chases Nina, based on Waugh's 1st wife Evelyn; basis of David Bowie's song "Aladdin Sane"; film in 2003 by Stephen Fry as "Bright Young Things". In 1930 he converts from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism. In 1932 he pub. Black Mischief. In 1938 he pub. Scoop; British journalist William Boot of the Daily Beast gets a scoop in the African state of Ishmaelia. In 1945 he pub. Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred & Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder, his magnum opus, about an aristocratic English Roman Catholic family; Hertford College, Oxford U. undergrads Charles Ryder of Brideshead Castle in Wiltshire, Lord Sebastian Flyte, gay Anthony Blanche; Lord and Lady Marchmain; written after a parachute accident in Dec. 1943. In 1948 he pub. The Loved One: An Anglo-American Tragedy; the funeral biz in Los Angeles, Calif. (Forest Lawn). In 1950 he pub. Helena. In 1952 he pub. Men at Arms; #1 in the Sword of Honour Trilogy (1952-61) about wandering disillusioned observer Guy Crouchback.
In 1929 Portsmouth, Hampshire-born poet Richard (Edward Godfree) Aldington (1891-1962) (husband of Hilda Doolittle) pub. his first novel Death of a Hero; English artist George Winterbourne joins the army in WWI, is changed, and commits suicide by enemy machine gun; he is forced by the British govt. to pub. it in censored form. In 1931 he pub. The Colonel's Daughter. In 1939 he pub. Rejected Guest. In 1946 he pub. The Romance of Casanova.
In 1929 Berkahamsted, Hertfordshire-born Henry Graham Greene (1904-91) pub. his first novel The Man Within; does well enough for him to quit his job at the Times and go full-time as a novelist. In 1932 he pub. Orient Express; filmed in 1934. In 1934 he pub. It's a Battlefield. In 1935 he pub. England Made Me. In 1936 he pub. This Gun for Hire. In 1938 he pub. Brighton Rock. In 1939 he pub. The Confidential Agent; written in Bloomsbury in 6 weeks in a rented apt. while have an affair with the landlady's daughter and popping Benzedrine; English-speaking former univ. prof. D from the Continent is sent to England to buy coal. In 1940 he pub. The Power and the Glory (The Labyrinthine Ways); title taken from the Lord's Prayer; a "whiskey priest" in 1930s Tabasco, Mexico under anti-clerical pres. Plutaro Elias Calles is hunted by a ruthless police lt. (based on Tobasco gov. Tomas Garrido Canabal), uttering the soundbyte "Hate was just a failure of imagination"; based on his 1938 trip to Tabasco to view the govt.'s anti-Catholic secularization campaign, where he got religion; in 1953 the Holy Office tells him that the novel damages the rep. of the priesthood, but later Pope Paul VI tells him privately to disregard that. In 1943 he pub. The Ministry of Fear; a man gets caught up in an internat. spy ring in London during the Blitz after guessing the weight of a cake at a fair and finding a secret microfilm; filmed in 1944. In 1948 he pub. The Heart of the Matter; Maj. Henry "Ticki" Scobie, a white police officer in Sierra Leone converts to Roman Catholicism to please his wife Louise then starts committing mortal sins; "If one knew, he wondered, the facts, would one have to feel pity even for the planets? If one reached what they called the heart of the matter?" In 1949 he writes the script for the film The Third Man. In 1951 he pub. The End of the Affair. In 1953 he pub. The Living Room. In 1955 he pub. The Quiet American; if only the U.S. govt. had read it, they might have avoided the Vietnam War? In 1957 he pub. The Potting Shed; James Callifer's family holds a secret for almost 30 years about what happened you know where when he was 14. In 1958 he pub. Our Man in Havana; vacuum cleaner salesman James Wormold (based on WWI Lisbon-based double agent Garcia) is recruited by Hawthorne for MI6, and invents a network of agents in order to support his teen daughter Milly, sending a sketch of a vaccum cleaner to London and telling them it's a rocket launcher; too bad, the enemy think he's for real; when they figure it out, his superiors give him a medal to cover up their own stupidity; predicts or causes the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis?; filmed in 1959 starring Alex Guinness. In 1959 he pub. The Complaisant Lover. In 1961 he pub. A Burnt-Out Case. In 1966 he pub. The Comedians; set in Haiti after he visits Papa Doc Duvalier and stays in Hotel Oloffson in Port-au-Prince; filmed in 1967. In 1969 he pub. Travels with My Aunt; retired bank mgr. Henry Pulling and his Aunt Augusta. In 1973 he pub. The Honorary Consul. In 1978 he pub. The Human Factor; aging white MI6 bureaucrat Maurice Castle marries a black South African woman, frames his young colleague Davis for a leak, and helps the Communists in order to help her - I can no more disown her than I can disown the black community? On Mar. 27, 1980 he pub. Dr. Fischer of Geneva; Or, The Bomb Party; a misanthropic millionaire holds his last party; based on his time in Vevey on Lake Geneva.
In 1929 Weybridge, Surrey-born Richard Arthur Warren Hughes (1900-76) pub. A High Wind in Jamaica; pirates accidentally capture a group of English children, who turn out to be more amoral than them; adapted as the play "The Innocent Voyage". In 1938 he pub. In Hazard.
In 1929 Hitchin, Hertfordshire-born Mary Elizabeth Jenkins (1905-2010) pub. her first novel Virginia Water; "a sweet white grape of a book" (Virginia Woolf). In 1934 she pub. Harriet. In 1935 she pub. Doubtful Joy. In 1936 she pub. The Phoenix' Nest. In 1944 she pub. Robert and Helen.
In 1929 Glamorgan, Wales-born Eric Robert Russell Linklater (1899-1974) pub. his first novel White Maa's Saga; also Poet's Pub. In 1932 he pub. The Men of Ness. In 1933 he pub. The Crusader's Key. In 1938 he pub. The Impregnable Women. In 1939 he pub. Judas; portrays him as the prototype of a 1960s hippie? In 1944 he pub. The Wind on the Moon. In 1946 he pub. Private Angelo. In 1949 he pub. A Spell for Old Bones; also The Pirates in the Deep Green Sea.
In 1929 Bradford-born John Boynton Priestley (1894-1984) pub. The Good Companions; "There, far below, is the knobbly backbone of England, the Pennine Range. At first, the whole dark length of it, from the Peak to Cross Fell, is visible." In 1930 he pub. Angel Pavement.
In 1930 Uniontown, Penn.-born mystery novelist John Dickson Carr (1906-77) pub. his first novel It Walks by Night, about detective Henri Bencolin. In 1931 he pub. Castle Skull; The Lost Gallows; more on Henri Bencolin. In 1932 he pub. Poison in Jest; The Waxworks Murder (Corpse in the Waxworks); more Henri Bencolin. In 1932 he establishes permanent residence in England. In 1933 he pub. Hag's Nook; also The Mad Hatter Mystery, which introduces fat jolly lexicographer detective Dr. Gideon Fell, based on English writer G.K. Chesterton. In 1934 he pub. The Blind Barber; also Devil Kinsmere (rev. in 1964); also The Eight of Swords; also The Bowstring Murders (pub. under alias Carter Dickson); also The Plague Court Murders (pub. under alias Carter Dickson); about detective Sir Henry Merrivale; also The White Priory Murders; ditto. In 1935 he pub. Death-Watch; also The Hollow Man (The Three Coffins); also The Red Widow Murders; Sir Henry Merrivale; also The Unicorn Murders; ditto. In 1936 he pub. The Arabian Nights Murder; also The Punch and Judy Murders (The Magic Lantern Murders); Sir Henry Marrivale. In 1937 he pub. The Burning Court; also The Ten Teacups (The Peacock Feather Murders). In 1938 he pub. The Four False Weapons, Being the Return of Bencolin; also To Wake the Dead; also The Crooked Hinge; also The Black Spectacles (The Problem of the Green Capsule); also The Judas Window (The Crossbow Murder); also Death in Five Boxes. In 1939 he pub. The Problem of the Wire Cage; also Drop to His Death (Fatal Descent) (with John Rhodes); also The Reader is Warned. In 1940 he pub. The Man Who Could Not Shudder; also And So to Murder; also Murder in the Submarine Zone (Nine - And Death Makes Ten) (Murder in the Atlantic). In 1941 he pub. The Man Who Could Not Shudder; also Seeing is Believing (Cross of Murder). In 1942 he pub. The Gilded Man; also The Case of the Constant Suicides; also The Gilded Man (Death). In 1943 he pub. Death Turns the Tables (The Seat of the Scornful); also The Emperor's Snuff-Box; also She Died a Lady. In 1944 he pub. Till Death Do Us Part; He Wouldn't Kill Patience. In 1945 he pub. The Curse of the Bronze Lamp (Lord of the Sorcerers). In 1946 he pub. He Who Whispers; also My Late Wives. In 1947 he pub. The Sleeping Sphinx. In 1948 he pub. The Skeleton in the Clock. In 1950 he pub. The Bride of Newgate; Night at the Mocking Widow. In 1951 he pub. The Devil in Velvet. In 1952 he pub. Behind the Crimson Blind; also The Nine Wrong Answers; also Behind the Crimson Blind. In 1953 he pub. The Cavalier's Cup. In 1955 he pub. Captain Cut-Throat. In 1956 he pub. Fear is the Same; Patrick Butler for the Defense; new detective. In 1957 he pub. Fire, Burn! In 1958 he pub. The Dead Man's Knock; Dr. Gideon Fell solves another locked room mystery. In 1959 he pub. Scandal at High Chimneys: A Victorian Melodrama. In 1960 he pub. In Spite of Thunder; Dr. Gideon Fell solves the case of a suicide at Berchtesgaden in 1939. In 1961 he pub. The Witch of the Low Tide: An Edwardian Melodrama; set in 1907. In 1962 he pub. The Demoniacs. In 1964 he pub. Most Secret; rev. of the 1934 novel "Devil Kinsmere". In 1965 he pub. The House at Satan's Elbow; Dr. Gideon Fell. In 1966 he pub. Panic in Box C. In 1968 he pub. Dark of the Moon; Dr. Gideon Fell; also Papa La-Bas; Sen. Judah P. Benjamin and Richard Macrae witness a devilish murder in 1858 New Orleans; "He had been conscious of disquiet for many days before anything actually happened. Then, at dusk on the evening of Wednesday, April fourteenth, a New Orleans drowned in mud-flats beside the Father of Waters..." In 1970 he pub. The Ghosts' High Noon. In 1971 he pub. Deadly Hall. In 1972 he pub. The Hungry Goblin: A Victorian Detective Novel; Wilkie Collins.
In 1930 Ashtead, Surrey-born Alan Patrick Herbert (1890-1971) pub. The Water Gipsies. In 1934 he pub. Holy Deadlock, about the absurdities of British divorce law, which helps him get the Herbert Divorce Act passed in 1937, extending the grounds of divorce after three years to cruelty, desertion for three years, and incurable insanity. In 1935 he pub. Uncommon Law, a collection of his humorous "Misleading Cases", pub. in Punch mag., often confused by the press with real cases, incl. the crime of "doing what you like".
In 1930 Chalfont St. Peter, Buckinghamshire-born Patrick O'Brian (1914-2000) pub. his first novel Caesar; causes critics to label him "the Boy Thoreau". In 1934 he pub. Beasts Royal (short stories). In 1938 he pub. Hussein. In 1950 he pub. The Last Pool and Other Stories. In 1952 he pub. Testimonies (Three Bear Witness). In 1953 he pub. The Catalans (The Frozen Flame). In 1954 he pub. The Road to Samarcand. In 1955 he pub. The Walker and Other Stories. In 1956 he pub. The Golden Ocean; also Lying in the Sun and Other Stories. In 1959 he pub. The Unknown Shore. In 1962 he pub. Richard Temple; Welsh spy is held in a German prison in France, and escapes into his past. In 1969 he pub. Master and Commander; British naval Capt. Jack Aubrey (modeled after Adm. Thomas Cochrane) and Irish-Catalan surgeon-spy Stephen Maturin in the Napoleonic Wars; great descriptions of the technical side of sailing ship operations; first of 21 books; initially pub. in Britain, the series becomes a hit in the U.S. after Norton launches it in 1989; the first vol. in the series is a must-read for big sailing ship enthusiasts.
In 1930 Ipswich, Suffolk-born Victor Sawdon Pritchett (1900-97) pub. The Spanish Virgin and Other Stories; establishes his rep. in England. In 1932 he pub. Shirley Sanz. In 1935 he pub. Nothing Like Leather. In 1937 he pub. Dead Man Leading. In 1951 he pub. Mr. Beluncle.
In 1930 Kent-born bi poet Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962) (lover of Virginia Woolf et al.) pub. The Edwardians. In 1931 she pub. All Passion Spent; elderly Lady Slane goes bohemian. In 1942 she pub. Grand Canyon; the Nazis invade the U.S.
In 1930 Hampton Wick, Middlesex-born playwright Robert Cedric Sherriff (1896-1975) pub. Journey's End, based on his 1928 play about trench life in WWI. In 1931 he pub. The Fortnight in September. In 1944 he pub. Chedworth. In 1948 he pub. Another Year.
In 1930 Seacombe (near Liverpool), Wallasey-born William Olaf Stapledon (1886-1950) pub. Last and First Men; future history of 18 successive species of humanity, incl. descriptions of genetic engineering and terraforming; launches his sci-fi writing career. In 1932 he pub. Last Men in London; autobio. novel about WWI vet Paul, who becomes a schoolteacher and discovers a "submerged superman" in his class named Humpty. In 1935 he pub. Odd John: A Story Between Jest and Earnest. In 1937 he pub. Star Maker; outline history of the Universe; first description of Dyson Spheres, later giving Freeman Dyson the idea. In 1939 he pub. Odd John: A Story Between Jest and Earnest. In 1942 he pub. Darkness and the Light. In 1944 he pub. Sirius: A Fantasy of Love and Discord; also Old Man in New World. In 1946 he pub. Death into Life. In 1947 he pub. The Flames: A Fantasy. In 1950 he pub. A Man Divided.
In 1931 Cardross, Dunbartonshire-born Archibald Joseph Cronin (1896-1981) pub. his first novel Hatter's Castle; written in 3 mo. after giving up a medical career in London; makes him an instant star. In 1932 he pub. Three Loves. In 1933 he pub. Grand Canary; also Kaleidoscope in K. In 1935 he pub. The Stars Look Down; set in Northumberland; also The Country Doctor; introduces Dr. Finlay. In 1937 he pub. The Citadel; set in Wales, using his experience of Medical Inspector for Mines in 1924, showing the evils of skipping lab tests; causes the establishment of the British Nat. Health Service. In 1939 he pub. Vigil in the Night. In 1941 he pub. The Keys of the Kingdom; bestseller about a Scottish missionary in China; filmed in 1944. In 1943 he pub. Adventures of a Black Bag; In 1944 he pub. The Green Years. In 1948 he pub. Shannon's Way. In 1950 he pub. The Spanish Gardener. In 1953 he pub. Beyond This Place.
In 1931 Limerick-born Kate O'Brien (1897-1974) pub. her first novel Without My Cloak. In 1934 she pub. The Ante-Room. In 1941 she pub. The Land of Spices; banned in Ireland for lezzie themes. In 1946 she pub. That Lady.
In 1931 Isle of Bute-born Angela Margaret Thirkell (1890-1961) pub. her first novel Three Houses. In 1933 she pub. High Rising; her first hit. In 1936 she pub. August Folly. In 1940 she pub. Cheerfulness Breaks.
In 1932 Foxrock, Dublin-born Samuel Barclay Beckett (1906-89) writes Dream of Fair to Middling Women; not pub. until 1992. In 1938 he pub. Murphy. In 1945 he writes Watt; not pub. until 1953. In 1946 he pub. The Expelled; also The Calmative; also The End; he also writes Mercier and Camier; not pub. until 1974. In 1951 he pub. Molloy. In 1953 he pub. The Unnamable.
In 1932 Londonderry-born Arthur Lunel Joyce Cary (1888-1957) pub. Aissa Saved. In 1933 he pub. An American Visitor. In 1936 he pub. The African Witch. In 1937 he pub. Castle Corner. In 1939 he pub. Mister Johnson; a young Nigerian pisses-off the British colonial regime and ends up dead. In 1940 he pub. Charley is My Darling; displaced young people at the start of WWII. In 1941 he pub. A House of Children; also Herself Surprised; #1 in the First Trilogy (1941-4); artist Gulley Jimson. In 1942 he pub. To Be a Pilgrim; #2 in the First Trilogy. In 1946 he pub. The Moonlight. In 1949 he pub. A Fearful Joy. In 1952-5 he pub. The Second Trilogy.
In 1932 Dorcester-born Llewelyn Powys (1884-1939) pub. The Life and Times of Anthony ŕ Wood. In 1940 Baker's Dozen is pub. posth.
In 1932 Leicester-born Charles Percy Snow (1905-80) pub. his first novel Death under Sail; seven friends go sailing on a small boat, and the host is murdered. In 1933 he pub. New Lives for Old. In 1940 he pub. Strangers and Brothers (George Passant); first in the 11-vol. Strangers and Brothers series (1940-1970).
In 1932 Cardiff-born Howard Spring (1889-1965) pub. his first novel Shabby Tiger; Nick Faunt, Piggy White, Moses, Rachel, Sir George Faunt, and Anna Fitzgerald in Manchester. In 1934 he pub. Rachel Rosing; sequel to "Shabby Tiger" (1932); also My Son, My Son! (O Absalom); his first bestseller. In 1940 he pub. Fame is the Spur; bestseller about a labor leader's rise to power. In 1944 he pub. Hard Facts. In 1946 he pub. Dunkerley's. In 1948 he pub. There is No Armour. In 1951 he pub. The Houses in Between. In 1953 he pub. A Sunset Touch.
In 1933 Cairo, Egypt-born Cecil Scott Forester (Cecil Louis Troughton Smith) (1899-1966) pub. The Gun. In 1939 he pub. Captain Horatio Hornblower (trilogy). In 1941 he pub. The Captain from Connecticut. In 1946 he pub. Lord Hornblower. In 1950 he pub. Mr. Midshipman Hornblower. In 1952 he pub. Lieutenant Hornblower.
In 1933 self-educated Salford, Lancashire-born Walter Greenwood (1903-74) pub. Love on the Dole; Harry and Sally Hardcastle in Hanky Park near Salford in N England live in fear of being on the dole; made into a play by Ronald Gow in 1934 starring his future wife Wendy Hiller, becoming a big hit in Britain, causing Parliament to reform unemployment laws, helping the unemployed author become permanently employed as a writer. In 1934 he pub. His Worship the Major. In 1935 he pub. The Time is Ripe. In 1936 he pub. Standing Room Only. In 1937 he pub. Cleft Stick. In 1938 he pub. Only Mugs Work; also The Secret Kingdom. In 1939 he pub. How the Other Man Lives. In 1952 he pub. So Brief the Spring; first in the Treloo Trilogy ("What Everybody Wants", "Down by the Sea").
In 1933 Wallasey, Merseyside-born Malcolm Lowry (1909-57) pub. his first novel Ultramarine. In 1947 he pub. Under the Volcano; alcoholic British consul Geoffrey Firmin attempts to get back his estranged wife Yvonne in a small village in Mexico on the Day of the Dead (Nov. 1), 1938.
In 1933 South London-born Dennis Yates (Yeats) Wheatley (-1977) pub. his 2nd novel The Forbidden Territory (Duke de Richleau), a big hit, launching his career; also Such Power Is Dangerous; also Old Rowley: A Very Private Life of Charles II. In 1935 he pub. The Eunuch of Stamboul. In 1936 he pub. They Found Atlantis; also Murder Off Miami (File on Bolitho Blane); also Contraband; Gregory Sallust. In 1937 he pub. The Secret War; also Who Killed Robert Prentice?; also Red Eagle. In 1938 he pub. Uncharted Seas; also The Malinsay Massacre; also The Golden Spaniard. In 1939 he pub. The Eunuch of Stamboul. In 1940 he pub. The Scarlet Impostor; also Three Inquisitive People; also Faked Passports; also The Black Baroness. In 1941 he pub. Strange Conflict; The Sword of Fate; Total War. In 1942 he pub. V for Vengeance; also Mediterranean Nights. In 1943 he pub. Gunmen, Gallants and Ghosts. In 1945 he pub. The Man Who Missed the War. In 1946 he pub. Codeword Golden Fleece; also Come Into My Parlour. In 1947 he pub. The Launching of Roger Brook. In 1948 he pub. The Shadow of Tyburn Tree; also The Haunting of Toby Jugg. In 1949 he pub. The Rising Storm; Robert Brook; also The Seven Ages of Justerinis. In 1950 he pub. The Second Seal. In 1951 he pub. The Man Who Killed the King. In 1952 he pub. The Star of Ill Omen. In 1953 he pub. To the Devil - a Daughter; Curtain of Fear. In 1954 he pub. The Island Where Time Stands Still. In 1955 he pub. The Dark Secret of Josephine. In 1956 he pub. The Ka of Gifford Hillary. In 1957 he pub. The Prisoner in the Mask. In 1958 he pub. Traitors' Gate. In 195 he pub. Stranger than Fiction; also The Rape of Venice. In 1960 he pub. The Satanist; special agent Barney Sullivan infiltrates the British Communist Party to battle pesky Satanists who are trying to start WWIII; his novels sell 1M copies a year during this decade.
In 1934 Wiltshire-born Nigel Balchin (1908-70) (AKA Mark Spade) pub. his first novel No Sky. In 1935 he pub. Simple Life. In 1936 he pub. Lightbody on Liberty. In 1943 he pub. Darkness Falls from the Air. In 1942 he pub. The Small Back Room. In 1944 he pub. Mine Own Executioner. In 1947 he pub. Lord I Was Afraid. In 1948 he pub. The Borgia Testament. In 1949 he pub. A Sort of Traitors. In 1951 he pub. A Way Through the Wood. In 1953 he pub. Sundry Creditors.
In 1934 Crewe-born William Cooper (Harry Summerfield Hoff) (1910-2002) pub. his first novel Trina. In 1935 he pub. Rhea. In 1937 he pub. Lisa. In 1946 he pub. Three Marriages. In 1950 he pub. Scenes from Provincial Life; Joe Lunn. In 1953 he pub. The Struggles of Albert Woods.
In 1934 Manchester-born Winston Mawdsley Graham (1908-2003) pub. his first novel The House with the Stained Glass Windows. In 1935 he pub. Into the Fog; also The Riddle of John Rowe. In 1936 he pub. Without Motive. In 1937 he pub. The Dangerous Pawn. In 1938 he pub. The Giant's Chair (Woman in the Mirror). In 1939 he pub. Keys of Chance; also Strangers Meeting. In 1940 he pub. No Exit. In 1941 he pub. Night Journey; Britain might be losing the war, but will "go down fighting". In 1942 he pub. My Turn Next (Cameo). In 1944 he pub. The Merciless Ladies. In 1945 he pub. The Forgotten Story; also Ross Poldark; first in a series of 12 (ends 2002) set in 18th-19th cent. Cornwall; Ross Poldark returns from the Am. wars to find his fiancee Elizabeth Chynoweth about to marry his cousin Francis Poldark, causing him to reopen a family tin mine and marry servant girl Demelza Carne (based on Graham's wife Jean); meanwhile Elizabeth is widowed and marries his arch-enemy George Warleggan; after being made into a BBC TV series in 1975, audiences of 15M cause church services to be cancelled when it's showing. In 1946 he pub. Demelza; Poldark Saga #2. In 1947 he pub. Take My Life. In 1949 he pub. Cordelia. In 1950 he pub. Night Without Stars; also Jeremy Poldark; Poldark Saga #3. In 1953 he pub. Fortune is a Woman; also Warleggan; Poldark Saga #4 (next in 1973). In 1955 he pub. The Little Walls. In 1956 he pub. The Sleeping Partner. In 1957 he pub. Greek Fire. In 1959 he pub. The Tumbled House. In 1961 he pub. Marnie; a woman's childhood nightmares make her into a liar and thief; filmed in 1964. In 1963 he pub. The Grove of Eagles. In 1965 he pub. After the Act. In 1967 he pub. The Walking Stick. In 1970 he pub. Angel, Pearl & Little God; William Angell and Pearl Friedel. In 1971 he pub. The Japanese Girl (short stories). In 1972 he pub. The Spanish Armadas; of 1588 and 1598. In 1973 he pub. The Black Moon: A Novel of Cornwall 1794-1795; Poldark Saga #5 (last in 1953). In 1975 the BBC-TV series Poldark, based on the Winston Graham novels about 18th-19th cent. Cornwall is a big hit, with audiences of 14M causing church services to be cancelled while it's showing. In 1976 he pub. The Four Swans; Poldark Saga #6. In 1978 he pub. Winston Graham (1908-2003), The Angry Tide: A Novel of Cornwall, 1789-1799; Poldark Saga #7. In 1981 he pub. The Stranger from the Sea; Poldark Saga #8. In 1982 he pub. The Cornish Farm (short stories); also The Miller's Dance: A Novel of Cornwall 1812-1813; Poldark Saga #9. In 1984 he pub. The Loving Cup; Poldark Saga #10. In 1986 he pub. The Green Flash; Scottish hellrake David Abden hooks up with Russian cosmetics queen Mme. Shona. In 1990 he pub. The Twisted Sword; Poldark Saga #11. In 1992 he pub. Stephanie. In 1995 he pub. Tremor. In 1998 he pub. The Ugly Sister. In 2002 he pub. Bella Poldark; #12 (last) in the Poldark Saga (begun 1945).
In 1934 Motihari, India-born George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair) (1903-50) (pseudonym based on the patron saint of England and the name of a river in Suffolk) pub. his first novel Burmese Days; "A portrait of the dark side of the British Raj"; based on his life with the Indian Imperial Police in 1922-7; John Flory, "the lone and lacking individual trapped within a bigger system that is undermining the better side of human nature"; "After all, natives were natives - interesting, no doubt, but finally... an inferior people." In 1937 he pub. The Road to Wigan Pier. On Aug. 17, 1945 he pub. Animal Farm, original title" Animal Farm: A Fairy Story", a satire of totalitarianism and Stalinism by a British dem. Socialist; Napoleon the Berkshire Boar (Joseph Stalin) and his right-hand pig Squealer (Vyacheslav Molotov), his rival Snowball the Pig (Leon Trotsky), Boxer the Horse; "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others"; "The war is not supposed to be winnable, it is supposed to be continuous, all for the hierarchy of society"; "The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent. It helps to preserve the special mental atmosphere that a hierarchical society needs. War is now a purely internal affair." On June 8, 1949 he pub. 1984 (Nineteen Eighty-Four); original title "The Last Man in Europe"; "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen" (first line); the terror of a post-apocalyptic truly totalitarian hi-tech society; Winston Smith, his babe Julia and the Ministry of Truth; introduces Oceania and its Thought Police and Newspeak, and terms incl. "doublespeak" and "doublethink" into the world vocabulary, along with mass slogans "Ignorance is Strength", "War is Peace", and "Freedom is Slavery"; "Football, beer and above all gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult"; "There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always - do not forget this, Winston - always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking into the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent"; "Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thought-crime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten... The process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. Even now, of course, there's no reason or excuse for committing thought-crime. It's merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control. But in the end there won't be any need even for that.... Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?"; "Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except the endless present in which the Party is always right"; "To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free, when men are different from one another and do not live alone — to a time when truth exists and what is done cannot be undone: From the age of uniformity, from the age of solitude, from the age of Big Brother, from the age of doublethink - greetings!"
In 1935 Rochester, Kent-born Enid Algerine Bagnold, Lady Jones (1889-1981) pub. National Velvet; 14-y.-o. Velvet Brown wins the Grand National steeplechase on the Piebald; filmed in 1944 starring Elizabeth Taylor.
In 1935 Jalandhar, India-born expatriate novelist Lawrence George Durrell (1912-90) (brother of naturalist Gerald malcolm Durrell) pub. his first novel Pied Piper of Lovers. In 1937 he pub. Panic Spring under the alias Charles Norden. In 1938 he pub. The Black Book. In 1947 he pub. Cefalu (The Dark Labyrinth).
In 1935 London-born Pamela Hansford Johnson (1912-81) (wife of C.P. Snow after dating Dylan Thomas this year) pub. This Bed Thy Centre. In 1936 she pub. Blessed Above Women. In 1937 she pub. Here Today; also World's End. In 1938 she pub. The Monument. In 1939 she pub. Girdle of Venus. In 1940 she pub. Too Dear for My Possessing. In 1942 she pub. The Family Pattern. In 1943 she pub. Winter Quarters. In 1944 she pub. The Trojan Brothers. In 1947 she pub. An Avenue of Stone. In 1948 she pub. A Summer to Decide. In 1949 she pub. The Philistines. In 1952 she pub. Catherine Carter.
In 1936 London-born Eric Clifford Ambler (1909-98) (AKA Eliot Reed) pub. his first novel The Dark Frontier. In 1937 he pub. Uncommon Danger (Background to Danger). In 1938 he pub. Epitaph for a Spy; also Cause for Alarm. In 1939 he pub. A Coffin for (The Mask of) Dimitrios. In 1940 he pub. Journey into Fear. In 1942 he pub. A Time to Be Born; hack writer Amanda Keller Evans and her newspaper magnate hubby Julian Evans, modelled after Clare Boothe Luce and Henry Luce. In 1951 he pub. Judgment on Deltchev. In 1953 he pub. The Schirmer Inheritance. In 1956 he pub. The Night-Comers (State of Siege). In 1959 he pub. Passage of Arms.
In 1936 London-born Daphne du Maurier (1907-89) pub. Jamaica Inn; a nest of pirates in 1820 Cornwall before the creation of the British Coast Guard, who lure ships to their doom on the rocks then murder the crew and steal the cargo, while working secretly for the money-loving local magistrate Sir Humphrey Pengallan. In 1938 she pub. Rebecca; makes her a star; wealthy Englishman Maximilian "Maxim" de Winter takes 2nd wife to live in his Manderley country estate in Cornwall, only to find that the memory of his late 1st wife Rebecca haunts the place along with a terrible secret; filmed in 1940; "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again" (opening line). In 1941 she pub. Frenchman's Creek. In 1943 she pub. Hungry Hill. In 1946 she pub. The King's General; bestseller. In 1950 she pub. Parasites. In 1952 she pub. My Cousin Rachel. In 1953 she pub. Kiss Me Again, Stranger (short stories).
In 1936 Horsehay, Shropshire-born Wales-loving Edith Mary Pargeter (1913-95) (AKA Ellis Peters) pub. her first novel Hortensius, Friend of Nero; also Iron-Bound. In 1937 she pub. Day Star; Peter Benedict. In 1938 she pub. Murder in the Dispensary; first in the Joylon Carr series (1938-40). In 1939 she pub. The City Lies Four-Square; also Freedom for Two; Joylon Carr. In 1940 she pub. Masters of the Parachute Mail; Joylon Carr; also Death Comes by Post; last in the Joylon Carr series; also The Victim Needs a Nurse; John Redfern. In 1941 she pub. Ordinary People (People of My Own). In 1942 she pub. She Goes to War. In 1945 she pub. The Eighth Champion of Christendom. In 1948 she pub. The Fair Young Phoenix; also By Firelight (By This Strange Fire). In 1950 she pub. The Coast of Bohemia. In 1951 she pub. Lost Children; Fallen into the Pit; first in a series about Inspector George Felse and his son Dominic; pub. under the alias Ellis Peters. In 1952 she pub. Holiday with Violence. In 1953 she pub. Most Loving Mere Folly; also The Rough Magic. In 1977 she pub. Afterglow and Nightfall; also A Morbid Taste for Bone; first in a series of 20 novels about crime-solving 12th cent. Welsh Benedictine monk Cadfael of Shrewsbury during the English civil war between Empress Maud (1102-67) and Stephen of Blois (1096-1154), pub. under the alias Ellis Peters, which makes her a late-blooming star via the cool Brother Cadfael BBC radio and TV series (1994-8) starring Sir Derek Jacobi and filmed in medieval-looking Hungary.
On Sept. 21, 1937 Bloemfontein, Orange Free State, South Africa-born English prof. of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College, Oxford U. (since 1924) J.R.R. (John Ronald Reuel) Tolkien (1892-1973) (pr. TOLL-keen) (from German "tollkuhn" = dull-keen = foolhardy) pub. The Hobbit: Or, There and Back Again (Sept. 21); Bilbo Baggins of the Shire goes on an adventure through Middle Earth with Gandalf the Wizard, meeting twisted creature Gollum, who guards the One Ring of Power; opening line: "In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit"; gets the idea while grading papers, and writes it in his home at 20 Northmoor Rd., N Oxford - somebody had hairy feet? On July 29, 1954 he begins pub. The Lord of the Rings (3 vols.), incl. The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers (Nov. 11, 1954), The Return of the King (Oct. 20, 1955); finished in 1948; the primordial Old Forest is based on Moseley Bog in West Midlands, England; the two towers are Orthanc and Barad-Dur; the Lord is Sauron; his servants are Saruman and the Nazgul; W.H. Auden writes major reviews for each vol. for the New York Times, getting them off to a fast start; first line: "When Mr Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton"; in 1961 C.S. Lewis nominates Tolkien for the Nobel Lit. Prize, but they pass him over because of low prose quality?
In 1938 Belfast, Ireland-born Clive Staples "Jack" Lewis (1898-1963) (who became an atheist at age 15, then was converted at age 31 by his Roman Catholic Oxford friend J.R.R. Tolkien and joined the Inklings group of Christian teachers and writers at Ox Ox Oxford) pub. Out of the Silent Planet; #1 of the sci-fi Cosmic (Space) (Ransom) Trilogy, written in response to his nemesis J.B.S. Haldane (ends 1945); hero is philologist Elwin Ransom; interplanetary theological attack on scientism, "the belief that the supreme moral end is the perpetuation of our own species, and that this is to be pursued even if, in the process... our species has to be stripped of all those things for which we value it - of pity, of happiness, and of freedom." In 1943 he pub. the sequel Perelandra (Voyage to enus). In 1942 he pub. The Screwtape Letters; a devil explains how he ensares souls. In 1945 he pub. That Hideous Strength; #3 in Space Trilogy. In 1950 he pub. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; set in 1940; first of seven books about Narnia, where it's "always winter and never Christmas": "Prince Caspian" (1951), "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" (1952), "The Silver Chair" (1953), "The Horse and His Boy" (1954), "The Magician's Nephew" (1955), "The Last Battle" (1956); Christlike lion-messiah Aslan, the White Witch, the four Pevensie siblings Susan, Lucy, Peter, Edmund (the betrayer), and a crypto-Christian battle between good and evil; sells 95M copies in the next 55 years; "The whole Narnian story is about Christ", writes Lewis in a 1961 letter to a child; Lewis recommends that they be read in the following order: 1955, 1950, 1954, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1956. Lewis dies on Nov. 22, 1963 the same day as U.S. Pres. John F. Kennedy and writer Aldous Huxley.
In 1939 London-born James Hadley Chase (Rene Lodge Brabazon Raymond) (1906-85) (AKA James L. Doherty, Ambrose Grant, Raymond Marshall) gets turned on by James M. Cain's "The Postman Always Rings Twice" (1934) and pounds out his own novel based on the Barker Gang, portraying Ma Barker as the sinister gang leader, even though he never set foot in the U.S.; becomes a big hit, launching the gangster novel along with his career; turned into a stage play in 1942 at the Prince of Wales Theatre in London, starring Robert Newton (200+ perf.); filmed in 1948 - the FBI bought a bunch of copies?
In 1939 Budapest, Hungary-born Arthur Koestler (1905-83), who joined the Communist Party in 1931, flip-flopped in 1938, and becomes a British subject in 1945, becoming a leading anti-Communist pub. The Gladiators, which inspires Euro Communists, who call themselves Spartacists; makes a blooper about ancient Roman houses having fire escapes. In 1940 he pub. Darkness at Noon; Old Bolshevik Rubashov experiences the horrors of the Stalinist purges after being forced to make a false confession of treason. In 1942 he pub. Dialogue with Death. In 1943 he pub. Arrival and Departure. In 1946 he pub. Thieves in the Night.
In 1939 Hendon, Middlesex-born (Welsh parents) Richard Llewellyn (1906-83) pub. How Green Was My Valley; the bestselling novel of 1940; the poor Morgan mining family in Victorian South Wales; "How green was my Valley then, and the Valley of them that have gone" (last line); filmed in 1941. In 1943 he pub. None But the Lonely Heart; a Cockney boy returns home to his family and finds they need him; filmed in 1944. In 1950 he pub. A Few Flowers for Shiner.
In 1939 London-born Angela du Maurier (1904-2002) (sister of Daphne du Maurier) pub. her first novel The Perplexed Heart. In 1940 she pub. The Little Less. In 1942 she pub. Treveryan. In 1946 she pub. Lawrence Vane: A Novel. In 1948 she pub. Birkinshaw and Other Stories. In 1950 she pub. Reveille. In 1952 she pub. Shallow Waters.
In 1939 London-born lesbian historical novelist Mary Renault (nee Eileen Mary Challans) (1905-83) pub. her first novel Purposes of Love. In 1943 she pub. The Friendly Young Ladies (The Middle Mist). In 1947 she pub. Return to Night. In 1948 she pub. The North Face. In 1948 she emigrates to South Africa. In 1953 she pub. The Charioteer.
On Sept. 1, 1939 - Sept. 2, 1945 the horrific $3.5T World War II resulted in 24M military and 49M civilian deaths, and featured the low point of the Jewish Holocaust (Shoah) by the German Nazis, I guess it was the Jews' fault for not ransoming themselves to go to Israel before they could round them up for the camps. The whole experience turned Jews from lovers into fighters, ramping up the Zionist movement with full world sympathy and support by new world superpower U.S., which had its own guilt trip because on Nov. 24, 1942 Budapest-born Am. Zionist leader Rabbi Stephen Samuel Wise (1874-1949) announced in a press conference in Washington, D.C. that he was authorized by the U.S. State Dept. to confirm that the Nazis had murdered 2M Jews as part of a plan to exterminate all Jews in Europe; too bad, the nat. newspapers didn't consider it front page news, and the U.S. govt. did nada. After the war ended and Americans toured the concentration camps in horror, Polish-born Jewish scholar Raphael Lemkin (1900-59), who single-handedly led an unsuccessful campaign to get the League of Nations to give internat. protections against genocide starting in 1933 finally got what he wanted after his own people got it, namely the Dec. 9, 1948 U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Gen. Assembly Resolution 260), which didn't come in force until Jan. 12, 1951, and which the U.S. still didn't ratify until 1988. By the end of WWII the U.S. was the World's Policeman, with half the world's wealth, and a Baby Boom accompanied by an economic boom created a huge mass-market for novels and everything else.
In 1940 Penelope Fitzgerald (1916-2000) pub. The Bookshop.
In 1940 Simla, India-born Mary Margaret "Mollie" Kaye (1908-2004) pub. her first novel Six Bars at Seven. In 1944 she pub. Strange Island (Night on the Island). In 1953 she pub. Death in Kashmir; first in a series of "Death in" novels (1953-60), which are revised in 1983-5.
In 1940 Carmarthenshire, Swansea, Wales-born poet Dylan Marlais Thomas (1914-53) pub. Portrait of the Artist As A Young Dog (short stories); ratty, fat, outgoing pisshead orator?
In 1942 the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for the best work of lit. by a British Commonwealth author age 35 or under written in English is established by Jane Oliver in memory of her hubby RAF bomber pilot John Llewellyn Rhys, who was KIA on Aug. 5, 1940; the first winner is Michael Richey for "Sunk by a Mine".
In 1943 Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire-born Henry Green (Henry Vincent Yorke) (1905-73) pub. Caught. In 1945 he pub. Loving.
In 1944 London-born William Sansom (1912-76) pub. Fireman Flower (short stories). In 1948 he pub. South (short stories); also Something Terrible, Something Lovely (short stories). In 1949 he pub. his first novel The Body. In 1950 he pub. The Passionate North (short stories). In 1951 he pub. The Face of Innocence. In 1952 he pub. A Touch of the Sun (short stories).
In 1945 Percy Howard Newby (1918-97) pub. his first novel A Journey to the Interior. In 1950 he pub. The Young May Moon. In 1951 he pub. A Season in England. In 1952 he pub. A Step to Silence. In 1953 he pub. The Retreat.
In 1945 Reading, Berkshire-born Elizabeth Taylor (nee Coles) (1912-75) (not to be confused with the actress) pub. her first novel At Mrs. Lippincote's. In 1946 she pub. Palladian. In 1947 she pub. A View of the Harbour. In 1949 she pub. A Wreath of Roses. In 1951 she pub. A Game of Hide and Seek. In 1953 she pub. The Sleeping Beauty.
WWI and WWII knocked Britain down several pegs, causing its men to go into denial, followed by anger, grief, and acceptance? After WWII the Angry Young Men lit. group is launched, incl. playwright Sir Kingsley William Amis (1922-95), Philip Arthur Larkin (1922-85), John James Osborne (1929-94), and John Barrington Wain (1925-94). In 1946 Coventry, Warwickshire-born poet Larkin pub. his first novel Jill. In 1947 he pub. A Girl in Winter.
In 1947 Bermondsey, London-born Ronald Frederick Delderfield (1912-72) pub. his first novel All Over the Town. In 1949 he pub. Seven Men of Gascony.
In 1947 Hampstead, London-born Sir John Clifford Mortimer (1923-2009) pub. his first novel Charade.
In 1948 Minehead, Somerset-born Arthur Charles Clarke (1917-2008) pub. his first novel Against the Fall of Night, about the contrasting civilizations of Diaspar and Lys; rewritten in 1956 as "The City and the Stars". In 1950 he pub. his first sci-fi novel Prelude to Space. In 1953 he pub. Childhood's End; the alien Overlords take over the Earth. In 1962 he pub. Profiles of the Future (essays); contains the essay "Hazards of Prophecy", in which he proposes Clarke's Laws of Sci-Fi: 1. When a scientist says that something is possible, he is probably right, but when he says it's impossible, he's probably wrong. 2. The only way of discovering the limits of the posible is to venture into the impossible. In 1973 he adds 3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, adding "As three laws were good enough for Newton, I have modestly decided to stop there." In 1963 he pub. Dolphin Island: A Story of the People of the Sea; based on the research of John Cunningham Lilly (1915-2001). On Apr. 2, 1968 Stanley Kubrick's $10M 2001: A Space Odyssey debuts, a classical music-heavy landmark A-list sci-fi film based on Arthur C. Clarke's story "The Sentinel", with a cool score by Romanian-born Austrian-Hungarian Jewish composer Gyorgy Ligeti (1923-2006) stars white dull-enough-but-kinky-inside Keir Dullea as a space Ulysses, with its depiction of space travel as commercialized and matter-of-fact (Pan Am Orion between Earth and Moon), and its depiction of the AI talking computer HAL (I-1 B-1 M-1), who throws a hissy fit over Jupiter, which just happens to be the home of the aliens who evolved us from apes, and gave us a test to qualify for the next evolutionary jump; #2 grossing film of 1968 ($56.7M) - the real thrill is the thought that white flight can look to space? In 1972 he pub. Rendezvous with Rama; a mysterious 50-km-long cylindrical starship enters the Solar System in the year 2130, is investigated, and after a 1GT nuke fired from Mercury fails to destroy it, it slingshots around the Sun toward the Large Magellanic Cloud; "And on far-off Earth, Dr. Carlisle Perera had as yet told no one how he had wakened from a restless sleep with the message from his subconscious still echoing in his brain: The Ramans do everything in threes." (ending) In 1973 he pub. Profiles of the Future (essays); rev. of the 1962 ed.; adds his Third Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"; in 1999 he adds his Fourth Law: "For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert"; the idea that magic and technology are ultimately equal turns both sci-fi and fantasy writers on, confusing the genres, with Larry Niven uttering the soundbyte "Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology." In 1975 he pub. Imperial Earth; Duncan Makenzie travels to Earth from his home on Titan to see the U.S. on its 500th birthday in 2276 and also in order to clone himself. In 1979 he pub. The Fountains of Paradise; a scientist attempts to build a space elevator. In Jan. 1982 he pub. 2010: Odyssey Two (Jan.); sequel to "2001" (1968); a joint U.S.-Soviet rescue mission witnesses Jupiter nova into the star Lucifer; dedicated to first spacewalker (1965) Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov (1934-); filmed in 1984. In Dec. 1987 he pub. 2061: Odyssey Three; an expedition to Halley's Comet violates the orders not to approach Europa; filmed in ?. In 1997 he pub. 3001: The Final Odyssey; the freeze-dried body of 2001 astronaut Frank Poole is discovered in deep space by human spaceship Goliath, who revive him and take him back to 3001 Earth, where he discovers the BrainCap, dino servants, the space drive, and the four space elevators spaced around the equator, and learns that the Jovian monolith is about to get orders from its maker 450 l.y. away to destroy human civilization, creating a virus to stop it; filmed in ?. filmed in ?. On Dec. 31 NPR interviews sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008), asking him if anything happened in the 20th cent. that he could not have anticipated, and he utters the soundbyte "Yes, absolutely. The one thing I never would have expected is that, after centuries of wonder and imagination and aspiration, we would have gone to the Moon... and then stopped."
In 1949 Kermanshah, Iran-born Doris May Lessing (1917-2013) pub. her first novel The Grass is Singing. In 1952 she pub. Martha Quest. In 1960 she pub. In Pursuit of Englishness. In 1969 she pub. The Four-Gated City. In 1979 she pub. Re: Colonied Planet 5, Shikasta: Personal Psychological Historical Documents Relating to Visit by Johor (George Sherban), Emissary (Grade 9) 87th of the Last Period of the Last Days. In 1980 she pub. The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five; also The Sirian Experiments. In 1982 she pub. The Making of the Representative for Planet 8; "This is the story of Planet 8 of the Canopean Empire, a prosperous and contented little planet inhabited by handsome, vibrant, intelligent people, as told to us by one of the planet's fifty Representatives." In 1983 she pub. The Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire. In 1988 she pub. The Fifth Child. In 1999 she pub. Mara and Dann.
In 1949 Nancy Mitford (1904-73) pub. Love in a Cold Climate; satire of British aristocracy in the 1920s-1930s; Fanny likes to wear Schiaparelli fashions with the label on the outside.
In 1949 Liverpool-born pacifist WWII ambulance brigade vet Nicholas John Turney Monsarrat (1910-79) pub. H.M.S. Marlborough Will Enter Harbour (short stories). In 1951 he pub. The Cruel Sea; about "small ships" in WWII incl. corvettes and frigates; filmed in 1953 by Charles Frend. In 1952 he pub. The Story of Esther Costello, about a blind person's teachers and assistants runing a sleazy racket playing on sympathy, which pisses-off Hellen Keller, who tries to keep it off the shelves; filmed in 1957. In 1956 he pub. The Tribe That Lost Its Head; followed by "Richer Than All His Tribe" (1968). In 1959 he pub. Nicholas Monsarrat (1910-79), The Ship That Died of Shame and Other Stories; originally pub. in 1952, and filmed in 1955. In 1960 he pub. The Nylon Pirates; card sharks aboard an ocean liner. In 1964 he pub. A Fair Day's Work; labor unrest in a shipyard. In 1973 he pub. The Kappilan of Malta; on priest on Malta during WWII. He dies of cancer in London Aug. 8, 1979, leaving The Master Mariner (2 vols.). "Sailors, with their built-in sense of order, service and discipline, should really be running the world."
In 1949 after a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, Huyton, Lancashire, England-born Samuel Youd (1922-2012) (not Jewish) pub. his first novel The Winter Swan. In 1951 he begins using the alias John Christopher, and in 1955 he pub. his first sci-fi novel The Year of the Comet, about a world controlled by the managerials Atomics and Telecoms, followed by The Death of Grass (No Blade of Grass (1956), about a virus killing the grass and causing a famine, which is filmed in 1970 by Cornel Wilde. In 1966 he switches to adolescent sci-fi, and pub. The Tripods Trilogy (1967-68), about humanity being enslaved by 3-legged Tripods who drive them back to the Middle Ages, followed by The Lotus Caves (1969), about life under the Bubble on the Moon in 2068, The Guardians (1970), about 2052 England, which is polarized into the Conurbs and the County, and The Sword of the Spirits Trilogy (1971-2), about post-apocalyptic S England, where the Seers run a medieval society in the name of the Spirits, and keep Christians down.
In 1950 Alfred Duff Cooper, 1st Viscount Norwich (1890-1954) pub. his first and only novel Operation Heartbreak, about the Apr. 1943 MI6 operation to fool the Nazis into thinking that the Allies were going to invade Sardinia instead of Sicily.
In 1950 London-born Elizabeth Jane Howard (1923-) (wife of Kingsley Amis) pub. her first novel The Beautiful Visit. In 1956 she pub. The Long View. In 1959 she pub. The Sea Change.
In 1951 Flemington, Lanarkshire, Scotland-born Robin (John) Jenkins (1912-2005) pub. his first novel So Gaily Sinks the Lark.
In 1951 Westminster-born Anthony Dymoke Powell (1905-2000) (pr. like pole) pub. A Question of Upbringing; first in the 12-vol. novel series "A Dance to the Music of Time" (1951-75).
In 1951 Liverpool-born twins Anthony Joshua Shaffer (1926-2001) and Peter Levin Shaffer (1926-) pub. The Woman in the Wardrobe under the alias Peter Anthony. In 1952 they pub. How Doth the Little Crocodile? under the alias Peter Anthony.
In 1951 Dublin-born playwright George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) posth. pub. Farfetched Fables.
In 1951 Knowle, Warwickshire-born John Wyndham (John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris) (1903-69) pub. The Day of the Triffids; a meteor shower causes plant spores to mutate into giant carnivores.
In 1952 Tyne Dock, South Shields, County Durham-born alcoholic unmarried mother Dame Catherine Ann Cookson (Kate McMullen) (1906-98) pub. her first novel The Fifteen Streets. In 1953 she pub. Colour Blind. In 1954 she pub. Maggie Rowan. In 1957 she pub. Rooney. In 1958 she pub. The Menagerie. In 1959 she pub. Fanny McBride.
In 1952 Southgate, Middlesex-born Paul Mark Scott (1920-78) pub. Johnny Sahib after it was rejected by 17 publishers. In 1953 he pub. The Alien Sky (Six Days in Marapore). In 1956 he pub. A Male Child. In 1958 he pub. The Mark of the Warrior.
In 1952 Bexhill-on-Sea-born Sir Angus Frank Wilson (Johnstone-Wilson) (1913-91) pub. his first novel Hemlock and After; aging closeted gay English liberal novelist Bernard Sands who failed to live up to his ideals tries to found a writers colony without losing his sick wife.
In 1953 London-born bi vegetarian Brigid Antonia Brophy, Lady Levey (1929-95) pub. The Crown Princess and Other Stories; also Hackenfeller's Ape. In 1956 she pub. The King of a Rainy Country.
On Apr. 13, 1953 failed Mayfair, London-born British spook Ian Lancaster Fleming (1908-64) pub. Casino Royale; a failed British spook introduces super-spy James Bond, whose name is borrowed from an Am. ornithologist, author of Birds of the West Indies; son of a Scottish father and Swiss mother who died in a mountain climbing accident when he was 11, he becomes a Navy comdr. in MI6 who smokes three packs of cigs a day; his boss, Special Operations head M (based on Col. Maurice Buckmaster, whose asst. Vera Atkins is the model for Miss Moneypenny, along with typist Jean Frampton) makes him switch from his favorite Beretta to the Walther Polizei Pistole Kurz (PPK) because of stopping power and reliability; his favorite drink is a martini made with three measures of Gordon's dry vermouth and one measure of vodka, and shaken (not stirred) until ice cold; Fleming pictures Bond as composer Hoagy Carmichael and/or Cary Grant?; his babe is Vesper Lynd (pun on West Berlin), for whom he creates the Vesper Cocktail (three measures of Gordon's gin, one of vodka, one-half of Kina Lillet vermouth, shaken not stirred, and served in a deep champagne goblet with a slice of lemon peel), which becomes popular after the novel is pub. On Apr. 5, 1954 he pub. Live and Let Die (James Bond 007 #2); written in Fleming's Goldeneye estate in Jamaica; about Mr. Big, SMERSH, and the world of voodoo; filmed in 1973. On Apr. 5, 1955 he pub. Moonraker (James Bond #007 #3); ex-Nazi industrialist Hugo Drag builds a nuclear-tipped rocket to destroy London; filmed in 1979. On Mar. 26, 1956 he pub. Diamonds Are Forever (James Bond 007 #4); an investigation of a diamond-smuggling ring in Sierra Leone leads to Las Vegas and hot smuggler babe Tiffany Case; filmed in 1971. On Apr. 8, 1957 he pub. From Russia With Love (James Bond 007 #5); SMERSH hatches a plot to assassinate Bond and discredit him using a beautiful Russian cipher clerk and the Spektor Soviet decoding machine as bait; filmed in 1963. On Mar. 3, 1958 he pub. Dr. No (original title "The Wound Man") (James Bond 007 #6); based on the failed TV adventure series "Commander Jamaica", which was based on the Fu Manchu stories of Sax Rohmer; a mysterious Chinese genius lives on Crab Key Island in Jamaica along with Honeychile Rider; filmed in 1962. On Mar. 23, 1959 he pub. Goldfinger (original title: The Richest Man in the World) (James Bond 007 #7) (Mar. 23); gold smuggler Auric Goldfinger plans to rob Fort Knox; "James Bond, with two double bourbons inside him, sat in the final departure lounge of Miami Airport and thought about life and death." (first sentence) On Apr. 11, 1960 he pub. the short story collection For Your Eyes Only, which incl. "From a View to a Kill" (filmed in 1985), "For Your Eyes Only" (filmed in 1971), "Quantum of Solace" (filmed in 2008), "Risico", and "The Hildebrand Rarity" (filmed in 1989 as "License to Kill"). On Mar. 27, 1961 he pub. Thunderball (James Bond 007 #8); introduces bad guy Ernst Stravro Blofeld of SPECTRE, who kills James Bond 007's wife and becomes his most hated foe; filmed in 1965, and in 1983 as "Never Say Never Again". On Apr. 16, 1962 he pub. The Spy Who Loved Me (James Bond 007 #9); narrated by young Canadian woman Vivienne Michel; filmed in 1977. On Apr. 1, 1963 he pub. On Her Majesty's Secret Service (James Bond #10); London uses the College of Arms in London to find Blofeld in Switzerland, meeting and marrying Contessa Teresa "Tracy" di Vicenzo, who is killed by Blofield hours after the ceremony; filmed in 1969 starring George Lazenby. On Mar. 26, 1964 he pub. You Only Live Twice (James Bond 007 #11) (Mar. 26); 8 mo. after the murder of his wife Tracy Bond, messed-up Bond is sent to Japan to compose himself, and ends up seeking revenge on Ernst Stavro Blofeld and his wife Irma Blunt by posing as a Japanese fisherman; filmed in 1967; 007 James Bond writes the haiku "You only live twice: once when you're born, once when you look death in the face"; "Have you ever heard the Japanese expression 'Kirisute gomen?"; "Spare me the Lafcadio Hearn, Blofield." On Apr. 1, 1965 he posth. pub. The Man With the Golden Gun (James Bond 007 #12); rogue assssin Francisco Scaramanga; filmed in 1974. On June 23, 1966 he posth. pub. Octopussy and The Living Daylights (short stories) (14th and last James Bond 007 book), which incl. "Octopussy" (filmed in 1983), "The Living Daylights" (filmed in 1987), "The Property of a Lady", and "007 in New York".
In 1953 Liverpool, England-born Charles Eric Maine (real name David McIlwain) (1921-81) pub. his first novel Spaceways Satellite; a scientist builds a time machine, then a fellow scientist thrusts him into the future to make out with his wife. In 1955 he pub. Escapement (The Man Who Couldn't Sleep). In 1956 he pub. High Vacuum. In 1958 he pub. The Tide Went Out (Thirst!): A Novel for Adult Minds Only; Alph (World Without Men); the first male baby in 500 years is created by cloning, shaking up the entire lesbian society; "They had forgotten what men looked like." In 1959 he pub. Count-Down (Fire Past the Future); Crisis 2000. In 1960 he pub. Calculated RiskHe (The Man Who) Owned the World. In 1961 he pub. The Mind of Mr. Soames; a man in a coma since infancy is awakened; filmed in 1970. In 1962 he pub. The Darkest of Nights (Survival Margin). In 1966 he pub. B.E.A.S.T. (Biological Evolutionary Animal Simulation Test)
In 1953 Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire-born poet John Barrington Wain (1925-94) pub. his first novel Hurry on Down, about a univ. graduate fighting conventional society. In 1962 he pub. Strike the Father Dead; a jazzman rebels against his dad. In 1975 he pub. Feng. In 1982 he pub. Young Shoulders; 17-y.-o. Paul faces the death of loved ones.
In 1954 Clapham, South London-born Sir Kingsley William Amis (1922-95) pub. his first novel Lucky Jim; history prof. Jim Dixon tries to survive a high-brow English univ. In 1955 he pub. That Uncertain Feeling; a librarian is tempted to adultery. After the 1956 Hungarian Rev. he flops from Communist to conservative. In 1958 he pub. I Like It Here. In 1960 he pub. Take a Girl Like You; Jenny Bunn is seduced by her schoolmaster Patrick Standish. In 1965 he pub. The James Bond Dossier; also The Book of Bond; or, Every Man His Own 007; pub. under alias Lt. Col. William "Bill" Tanner. In 1966 he pub. The Anti-Death League. In 1967 he pub. The Green Man. In 1968 he pub. I Want It Now. On Sept. 22, 1971 he pub. Girl, 20; an aging conductor leaves his wife for a young bird in swinging 1960s London. On Sept. 18, 1971 he pub. Jake's Thing; 60-y.-o. Jake pursues his lost libido. In 1976 he pub. The Alteration; what if the Reformation never happened?
In 1954 Newquay, Cornwall-born Sir William Golding (1911-93) pub. The Lord of the Flies; English schoolboys wrecked on a tropical island go wild, worshipping an impaled sow's head representing the "beast", destroying the conch and killing two; Ralph, Piggy, Jack Merridew, Simon, Roger, Samneric, Littluns; "The desire to squeeze and hurt was overmastering"; "With filthy body, matted hair, and unwiped nose, Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy"; "I should have thought that a pack of British boys... would have been able to put up a better show than that"; filmed in 1963 - even whites are all born in sin? In 1959 he pub. Free Fall.
In 1955 Norfolk, England-born Oxford bookseller Brian Wilson Aldiss (1925-) pub. his first novel The Brightfount Diaries, a semi-autobio. novel. In 1957 after winning a short story contest by The Observer that had to be set in the year 2500, he pub. Space, Time and Nathaniel (short stories), allowing him to go full-time as a writer. In 1958 he pub. Non-Stop (Starship); a member of a primordial tribe investigates the jungle corridors, uncovering the true nature of his universe. In 1959 he pub. No Time Like Tomorrow (short stories), incl. "Outside". In 1960 he pub. The Interpreter (Bow Down to Nul), about Earthling Gary Towler, who defies the 3-armed giant aliens who run the Partussy Earth Co-Prosperity Sphere of 4M planets. In 1961 he pub. The Primal Urge, about a society where people wear an Emotion Register on their foreheads that glows when they get sexually aroused; banned in Ireland. In 1962 he pub. Hothouse (The Long Afternoon of Earth), in which the Earth stops rotating. In 1964 he pub. Greybeard, about a society with no younger generation. In 1965 he pub. Earthworks, about an overpopulated police state where the wealthy Farmers exploit rural prison labor while chasing the subversive Travellers. In 1966 he pub. The Saliva Tree and Other Strange Growths (short stories), followed by An Age (1967), about a future society hooked on CSD who can travel backwards in time in their minds using the Undermind. In 1967 he pub. the New Wave novel Report on Probability A, are you smart enough to try it? In 1969 he pub. Barefoot in the Head In 1969 he pub. the short story Super-Toys Last All Summer Long, which is filmed in 2001 as "A.I. Artificial Intelligence". In 1970 he pub. Neanderthal Planet (short stories). In 1970 he pub. The Hand-Reared Boy, about male masturbation, #1 in the Horace Stubbs Saga, followed by A Soldier Erect (1971), and A Rude Awakening (1978). In 1970 he pub. The Moment of Eclipse (short stories), followed by The Book of Brian Aldiss (The Cosmic Inferno) (short stories) (1972). In 1973 he pub. Frankenstein Unbound; Joe Bodenland of 21st cent. America passes through a timeslip and meets Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley in their villa on Lake Geneva, along with a real Frankenstein, and hooks up with Mary Shelley; filmed in 1990. In 1977 he pub. Brothers of the Head, about rockers who are conjoined twins; filmed in 2006. In 1982 he pub. Helliconia Spring, followed by Helliconia Summer (1983), and Helliconia Winter (1985), about a planet with cents.-long seasons. In 1986 he pub. Trillion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction
In 1956 London, England-born Edwin Charles Tubb (1919-2010) pub. The Space-Born; the 16th gen. of a starship crew enact a law eliminating people when they hit 40. In 1967 he pub. The Winds of Gath; first in the 33-vol. Dumarest (of Terra) Saga (ends 2008).
In Mar. 1957 Bingley, Yorkshire-born Angry Young Men novelist John Gerard Braine (1922-86) pub. his first novel Room at the Top, a bestselling Faustian tale about the rise of ambitious Joe Lampton; filmed in 1959. In 1962 he pub. John Braine (1922-86), Life at the Top, a sequel to "Room at the Top" (1957); filmed in 1965 starring Laurence Harvey. In 1964 he pub. The Jealous God; 30-y.-o. Irish Roman Catholic schoolteacher tries to break away from his mother in Yorkshire, who wants him to become a priest; Brain's favorite novel; filmed in 2005; title from the Alexander Pope line "The jealous God, when we profane his fires,/ Those restless passions in revenge inspires." In 1968 he pub. John Braine (1922-86), The Crying Game, about a conservative journalist who learns of a political scandal; no connection with the 1992 film.
In 1958 Nottingham-bornu Alan Sillitoe (1928-2010) pub. his first novel Saturday Night and Sunday Morning; young machinist Arthur Seaton of Nottingham detests his "dead from the neck up" parents and blows off steam during the weekends drinking and partying, hooking up with married woman Brenda, knocking her up and getting beaten and chased off by her hubby Jack, his co-worker, causing him to tame down and get married to virgin Doreen and turn into a clone of his parents; filmed in 1960 starring Albert Finney; "Whatever people say I am, that's what I am not." In 1959 he pub. The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner; poor Nottingham borstal boy Colin Smith has one talent; filmed in 1962, starring Tom Courtenay - silly toe?
In 1958 Bombay, India-born Terence Hanbury White (1906-64) pub. The Once and Future King, about King Arthur and Camelot; ironically, on Nov. 29, 1963 Jackie Kennedy gives the Camelot Interview to T.H. (Terence Hanbury) White (1906-64) in Hyannisport, Mass., which is partly pub. in the Dec. 6 Life mag., the rest in White's 1978 posth. memoir In Search of History: A Personal Adventure. It contains the soundbyte: "I'd get out of bed at night and play it for him, when it was so cold getting out of bed... on a Victrola 10 years old. And the song he loved most came at the very end of this record, the last side of Camelot, sad Camelot... 'Don't let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot'... There'll never be another Camelot again...", launching the JFK Camelot myth.
In 1959 Hunslet, Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire-born Keith Spencer Waterhouse (1929-2009) pub. his first novel Billy Liar, about a 19-y.-o. English clerk who fantasizes about the kingdom of Ambrosia; filmed in 1963. He goes on to become a screenwriter and columnist, voted most admired in Britain in Feb. 2004.
In 1960 Horbury, West Riding of Yorkshire-born Stanley "Stan" Barstow (1928-2011) pub. his first novel A Kind of Loving, about Vic Brown of Cressley, England and his struggle to work up from working class to white collar by courting Ingrid; spawns the term "lad-lit."; filmed in 1962.
In 1960 Hull, Yorkshire-born Lionel Davidson (1922-2009) pub. his first novel The Night of Wenceslas (first novel); 24-y.-o. Londoner Nicolas Whistler goes on a business trip to Prague and gets into spy trouble; big hit, pub. in a green Penguin jacket; filmed in 1964 as "Hot Enough for June". In 1962 he pub. The Rose of Tibet; Charlie Houston travels to Tibet in 1950-1, and is mistaken for their messiah and awarded a gorgeous babe and huge treasure, then told to take on the invading Red Chinese army; makes fans of Graham Greene and Barry Gifford. In 1966 he pub. A Long Way to Shiloh (The Menorah Men); language prof. Caspar Laing translated an ancient Israeli parchment giving the location of a menorah rescued from the Temple of Jerusalem before its destruction by the Roman in 70 C.E., and races the Jordanians to it in the Negev desert. In 1978 he pub. The Chelsea Murders; filmed for TV in 1981 by Derek Bennett. In 1994 he pub. his last novel Kolymysky Heights; Canadian Gitxsan Indian Johnny Porter in British Columbia is sent a coded message from Siberia and goes on a rescue mission; makes a fan of Philip Pullman.
In 1961 Shanghai-born dystopia lover James Graham "J.G." Ballard (1930-2009) pub. his first novel The Wind from Nowhere, about hurricanes destroying civilization. In 1962 he pub. The Voices of Time and Other Stories, along with Billennium (short stories). In 1962 he pub. The Drowned World, set in flooded deserted London in 2145 after global warming causes the polar ice caps to melt; founds the genre of climate fiction (cli-fi). In 1963 he pub. Passport to Eternity (short stories), and The Four-Dimensional Nightmare (short stories). In 1964 he pub. The Burning World, and The Terminal Beach (short stories). In 1965 he pub. The Drought. In 1966 he pub. The Crystal World, and The Impossible Man (short stories). In 1967 he pub. The Venus Hunters (short stories), The Overloaded Man (short stories), The Disaster Area (short stories), incl. "The Subliminal Man", and The Day of Forever (short stories). In 1969 he pub. The Atrocity Exhibition (Love and Napalm: Export USA) (short stories); kinky photos by Ana Barrado and artwork by Phoebe Gloeckner; filmed in 2001 by Jonathan Weiss. In 1971 he pub. Vermillion Sands (short stories), along with Chronopolis and Other Stories, and Low-Flying Aircraft and Other Stories. In 1973 he pub. Crash, about car-crash sexual fetishism (symphorophilia); filmed in 1996 by David Cronenberg. In 1974 he pub. Concrete Island. In 1975 he pub. High Rise. In 1979 he pub. The Unlimited Dream Company. In 1981 he pub. Hello America, about an expedition to 2114 America after it collapses ecologically and its pop. is evacuated. In 1982 he pub. Myths of the Near Future (short stories). On Sept. 13, 1984 he pub. Empire of the Sun, about young Brit Jamie Graham, who becomes separated when the Japanese occupy Shanghai, and ends up in a POW camp; filmed in 1987 by Steven Spielberg. In 1985 he pub. The Voices of Time (short stories). In 1987 he pub. The Day of Creation, about maniac Dr. Mallory, who wants to green the Sahara. In 1988 he pub. Running Wild, about Pangbourne Village 30 mi. outside of London, and Memories of the Space Age (short stories). In 1990 he pub. War Fever (short stories). In 1991 he pub. The Kindness of Women, sequel to "Empire of the Sun" (1984). In 1994 he pub. Rushing to Paradise. In 1998 he pub. Cocaine Nights. In 2000 he pub. Super-Cannes. In 2003 he pub. Millennium People. In 2006 he pub. his last novel Kingdom Come.
In 1961 Poole, Dorset-born MI6 agent John le Carre (Carré) (Fr. "the square") (David John Moore Cornwell) (1931-2020) pub. his first novel Call for the Dead, about un-James-Bond-like cerebral English spy George Smiley. In 1962 he pub. A Murder of Quality. In Sept. 1963 he pub. the internat. bestseller The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, about British agent Alec Leamas, who is sent to East Germany as a fake defector, exposing Western spy methods as morally inconsistent with Western dem. values, making him a star; filmed in 1965 starring Richard Burton. In 1968 he pub. The Looking Glass War; a Polish defector is sent behind the Iron Curtain to photograph a rocket in East Berlin. In 1974 he pub. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; first in the Karla Trilogy (1974-9); British spy George Smiley is called back from forced retirement to solve the case of a Soviet mole in the Circus; basis of a 1979 BBC-TV miniseries starring Alec Guinness. In 1977 he pub. The Honourable Schoolboy; #2 in the Karla Trilogy; Gerald "Jerry" Westerby. In 1979 he pub. Smiley's People (The Quest for Karla); #3 in the Karla Trilogy (begun 1974); Karla has a human side, making him vulnerable to Smiley's revenge. In 2001 he pub. The Constant Gardener; British diplomat Justin Quayle of Nairobi, Kenya discovers that his activist wife Tessa was killed, and searches for the reason, uncoveing an internat. conspiracy; filmed in 2005.
In 1962 Marylebone, London-born Leonard Cyril "Len" Deighton (1929-) pub. his first spy novel The IPCRESS File, about a nameless anti-hero of WOOC(P) vs. bad guys Jay and Dalby, who brainwash VIPs into loyalty to the Soviet Union with IPCRESS (Induction of Psycho-neuroses by Conditioned Reflex with Stress); becomes an instant bestseller, changing the spy thriller genre and earning him the title "Poet of the Spy Story" (Sunday Times); filmed in 1965 starring Michael Caine, who takes the name Harry Palmer (hairy palm?).
In Nov. 1974 Newbury, Berkshire-born Richard George Adams (1920-2016) pub. his first novel Watership Down, which becomes a mega-bestseller (50M copies), about a small group of literate cultured Lapine-speaking rabbits, who trek to a new home in Watership Down Hill in N Hampshire, England, led by psychic seer rabbit Fiver; inspired by 247-acre Skokholm Island off the coast of SW Wales, a breeding area for sea birds; rejected by seven publishers before Rex Collings takes a chance on it; filmed in 1978; Fiver, his brother Hazel, Bigwig, Blackavar, Kehaar, Silver, Pipkin; the police state of Efrafa under Gen. Woundwort; folk hero El-ahrairah, sun god Lord Frith, grim reaper Black Rabbit of Inle (Moon). In 1975 he pub. Shardik; a giant bear is the god of the primitive Ortelgan people, and hunter Kelderek becomes his greatest disciple. In 1976 he pub. The Tyger Voyage. In 1977 he pub. Plague Dogs; also The Adventures & Brave Deeds of the Ship's Cat on the Spanish Maine: Together with the Most Lamentale Losse of the Alcestis & Triumphant Firing of the Port of Chagres. In 1980 he pub. The Girl in a Swing; Am. porcelain dealer Alan Deslands meets German babe Karin (Kathe) on a business trip to Denmark, who commits an act "unnatural out of all course or kind" to be his wife. In 1982 he pub. The Legend of Te Tuna. In 1984 he pub. Maia; prequel to "Shardik" (1974).
In 1979 Cambridge-born Douglas Adams (1952-2001) pub. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe; vol. #1 of 5 of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"; "Don't Panic!"; the answer to everything is 23; sells 14M copies.
In 1987 Dunfermine, Fife, Scotland-born Iain Menzies Banks (1954-) pub. his first sci-fi novel Consider Phlebas, the title taken from a line in the T.S. Eliot poem "The Waste Land", about the galaxy-wide interspecies Idiran-Culture War; first in the Culture Series (1987-2012), about the Culture, whose pop. have 400-year lifespans but have been made obsolete by the Minds and other intelligent machines, incl. The Player of Games (1988), The State of the Art (1989), Use of Weapons (1990), Excession (1996), Inversions (1998), Look to Windward (2000), Matter (2008), Surface Detail (2010), and The Hydrogen Sonata (2012).
In 1989 Cardiff, Wales-born Kenneth Martin "Ken" Follett (1949-) pub. The Pillars of the Earth, about the building of a cathedral in fictional 12th cent. Kingsbridge, England during the Anarchy up to the murder of Thomas Becket, chronicling the development of architecture from Romanesque to Gothic; followed by "World Without End" (2007); he goes on to sell 150M copies.
In 1989 Nagasaki, Japan-born Kazuo Ishiguro (1954-) pub. his 3rd novel The Remains of the Day, about Germany appeaser Lord Darlington, his butler James Stevens, and his snubbed babe Miss Sarah "Sally" Kenton; "the evening's the best part of day"; filmed in 1993 by James Ivory starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson.
In 1995 Norwich, England-born Philip Pullman (1946-) pub. The Golden Compass (Northern Lights); written by a secular humanist atheist as an alternative to C.S. Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia", dissing organized religion; 12-y.-o. Lyra Bevelacqua uses an alethiometer (truth measure) to discover a path between worlds and finish the rebellion against the Authority started by Lucifer; filmed in 2007; first in the Dark Materials trilogy ("The Subtle Knife",1997, "The Amber Spyglass", 2000); really pisses-off Catholics?
On June 26, 1997 Yate, Gloucester-born Scottish welfare queen Joanne "Jo" "J.K." Rowling (1965-) pub. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and sales begin to take off immediately, soon causing a healthy rise in Satanism among children as the Edinburgh welfare queen leaves the welfare rolls and becomes the richest woman in the U.K., selling 6.9M books in one 24-hour period; evil Lord Voldemort (formerly Tom Riddle AKA I Am Lord Voldemort) murders James and Lily Potter and disappears after attempting to kill their infant son Harry Potter, causing Prof. Dumbledore, Prof. McGonagall and half-giant Rubeus Hagrid to place them in the care of muggle uncle-aunt Vernon and Petunia Dursley and their spoiled bully son Dudley, who live at 4 Privet Dr., until on his 11th birthday at midnight Hagrud arrives, tells him he's a wizard, and has been accepted at Hogwarts School for Wizards; "Mr. and Mrs. Dursley... were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much" (first line); the 7-novel series sells 400M copies (bestselling series in history), and incl.: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (1998); Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (1999); Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2000); Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2003), Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005), and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007); "I've met thousands of children, and not even one time has a child come up to me and said, 'I'm so glad I've read these books, because now I want to be a witch'" (Rowling) (instead of a muggle?); Harry Potter "the Boy Who Lived", Ron and Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger, Muggle cousin Dudley Dursley and his pal Piers, Peeves, Draco Malfoy, Neville Longottom (birthday one day before Harry), Sirius and Regulus Black, Remus J. Lupin, Peter "Wormtail" Pettigrew, Lupin, Moony, Padfoot, Prongs, Alastor "Mad Eye" Moody, Rubeus Hagrid, Hedwig and Errol the pet owls, Prof. Albus Dumbledore, Prof. Minerva McGonagall, Prof. Severus Snape, Prof. Flitwick, 9-3/4 King's Cross Station, Hogwarts School, Gryffindor House, Slytherin House, Ravenclaw House, Hufflepuff House, Godric Gryffindor, Salazar Slytherin, Rowena Ravenclaw, Helga Hufflepuff, Diagon Alley, Mirror of Erised, Lord Voldemort ("He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named"), 3-headed dog Fluffy, Floo Powder, Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans (tar, earwax, mud), Quidditch, Nimbus 2000 broomstick, the missing Horcruxes, the Death Eaters.