Classic 20th-Century British Novelists and Their Works

20th-Century British Novelists and Writers

To the present day. Narrative: the utopian novel.

Aldous Huxley

He was born into a well-known family of scientists and writers. He was educated at Eton and Oxford. He suffered personal tragedies, including near blindness at the age of 16. He worked as a journalist and lived in France and Italy. He died in 1937 in California. His style is cynical and hopeless. He uses a precise, satirical, brilliant, and intelligent language, with wit and confidence.

Works:

• Short stories: Limbo
• Essays: essayist who writes novels
• Poetry: Leda
• Travel book: Beyond the Mexique Bay
• Novels: Crome Yellow

George Orwell

His real name is Eric A. Blair. He was born in India and studied at Eton. He worked as a journalist; he came to Spain to fight in the Spanish Civil War. He had a farm on a Scottish island and later returned to Scotland, where he adopted an infant boy. He died of tuberculosis.

Works:

• The Road to Wigan Pier
• Novels: Burmese Days, Nineteen Eighty-Four

Evelyn Waugh

He was born in Hampstead. He went to Oxford and worked as a teacher and journalist. He converted to Catholicism and served in the Royal Navy during the Second World War. His style is satirical and he makes brilliant use of dialogue. He expresses nostalgia for the past and fear of the modern world.

Works:

• Travel book: A Tourist in Africa
• Novel: The Loved One

Graham Greene

He was the son of a headmaster of a public school. He went to Oxford University and became a journalist. He was also a film critic. He travelled widely and converted to Catholicism. His themes include the moral problems of a Catholic, failing and sin, the grace of God, individual choice, duty and love, and adventure stories.

Works:

• Travel books: Monsignor Quixote
• Novels: The Comedians

Iris Murdoch

She was born in Dublin, in an Anglo-Irish family. She studied at Oxford: classics, philosophy, and history. She was a member of the Aristotelian Society. She married John Bayley and she finally died of Alzheimer disease.

Works:

• Sartre
• Romantic Nationalist
• Under the Net

Philip Larkin

He was born in Coventry, England. He attended St John's College. He focused on intense personal emotion but strictly avoided sentimentality or self-pity. Deeply anti-social and a great lover and published critic of American jazz, Larkin never married and worked as a librarian in the provincial city of Hull, where he died in 1985.

Works:

• Poetry: Aubade, High Windows
• Prose: Jill: A Girl in Winter

Doris May Lessing

She was born in 1919 and is a British writer. She was awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature. She was described as "that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power, has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny." She was the 11th woman and the oldest ever person to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. She was also awarded the David Cohen Prize for a lifetime's achievement in British literature.

Works:

• Novels: The Golden Notebook, The Sweetest Dream
• Short story collections: African Stories, Spies I Have Known