On Modern British Fiction

Description: A landmark collection of essays on fiction in Britain over the last fifty years, including original contributions by the very best contemporary novelists and critics, such as Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, Hilary Mantel, James Wood, Christopher Hitchens, Michael Wood, and Elaine Showalter. Arranged thematically, pieces include developing a reception in America (Amis), how fiction reviewers have dealt with the English novel (Duguid), on commissioning and editing modern fiction (Franklin), the novel adapted for TV (Howard), modern historical fiction (Mantel), science fiction (Parrinder), crime writing (Priestman), 'Lad lit' after Lucky Jim (Showalter), and essays on Angus Wilson, Angela Carter, Iris Murdoch, Penelope Fitzgerald, V. S. Pritchett, Naipaul, and Rushdie. Edited by Zachary Leader, this is a must-read for anyone seriously interested in modern British fiction.

Review: On Modern British Fiction is to be welcomed by all kinds of readers. Anyone who cares about the nature and effect of current writing will want to read these very acute and well-researched essays. Contemporary Review ... the volume offers delights, insights and even a few personal memoirs. For this reason (the sheer eclecticism of the material) the result is a fascinating symposium ranging from artistic credos to revisionist perspectives ... an ambitious and learned collection of essays. Contemporary Review ... an enlightening collection. Good Book Guide ... lively and diverse collection. Daily Telegraph Anyone at all interested in fiction (or indeed in what it is to be 'modern' or 'British') will find at least three or four of these essays worth the price of the book. Caroline Moore, The Spectator This is a fine collection for sending a reader back to the sparkling source from whence it came. Erica Wagner, The Times ... a roll-call of contributors. The Spectator With a range of contributors comprising the very pick of contemporary novelists, critics, essayists, jounalists and academics, if any book stands to illuminate [the state of modern British fiction], this is it. William Sutcliffe, The Independent on Sunday

Contents: Notes on Contributors; Introduction; 1. V. S. Pritchett and English comedy; 2. No laughing matter: a word on Angus Wilson; 3. Mother Tongue -- a memoir; 4. Between Waugh and Wodehouse: comedy and Conservatism; 5. Ladlit; 6. Enigmas and homelands; 7. No passes or documents are needed: the writer at home in Europe; 8. Penelope; 9. Why Christopher Isherwood stopped writing fiction; 10. Shaping modern English fiction: the forming of contents and the contents of form; 11. The politics of narrative in the postwar Scottish novel; 12. The ruined futures of British science fiction; 13. P. D. James and the distinguished thing; 14. The novel adapted for television; 15. Against Dryness; 16. Commissioning and editing modern fiction; 17. Before it becomes literature: how fiction reviewers have dealt with the English novel; Index