Novelists Against Social Change

Novelists Against Social Change studies the writing of John Buchan, Dornford Yates and Angela Thirkell to show how these conservative authors put their fears and anxieties into their best-selling fiction. Resisting the threats of change in social class, politics, the freedom of women, and professionalization produced their strongest works.

'This volume is to be welcomed as a significant addition to this developing field of study. Kate Macdonald has produced a careful and well-grounded account of the work of three important writers in the middlebrow tradition. The book offers an original and refreshingly accessible analysis of these authors, examining their status as major figures in popular fiction, but also providing a nuanced and sensitive critique of their novels within the socio-cultural context of their times. Students of twentieth-century popular culture will find Dr Macdonald an astute and readable critic in this authoritative guide to the best-loved fiction of the time.' - Rob Spence, Edge Hill University, UK

Auteur

Kate Macdonald teaches British literature and publishing history in the Department of English Literature at the University of Reading, UK. She researches twentieth-century British book culture, publishing history and popular reading, on which she has published widely.

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Contenu

1. Introduction: Politics and Pleasure in Language
   
   2. From Communism to the Wall Street Crash: Buchan in the 1920s
   3. Ex-officers and Gentlemen: Yates in the 1920s
   4. Political Uncertainty: Buchan in the 1930s
   5. Novels of Instruction: Thirkell in the 1930s
   6. Aggressive Reactions: Yates in the 1930s and 1940s
   7. Thirkell in Wartime, 1940-45
   8. Rewriting History: Yates and Thirkell, 1945-1960
   9. Conclusion
      Endnotes
      Appendix 1: List of works by John Buchan, Dornford Yates and Angela Thirkell
      Works cited
      Index