Book Review by George S: Philip Gibbs was a so-so novelist, but a very good reporter. The saving grace of this 1922 novel is that in the second half, the reporter becomes dominant. The novel is very much designed to explore the political issues of the day. Gibbs has been called a ‘newspaper novelist’, and … Continue reading
Tagged with political fiction …
Judgment on Deltchev (1951) by Eric Ambler
Book Review by Sylvia D: Judgment on Deltchev is a political thriller set in a fictitious Balkan state at the time of the East European show trials in the aftermath of the Second World War. The story is told through the eyes of a London playwright known only as Mr Foster who has been sent … Continue reading
The Iron Heel (1908) by Jack London
Book review by Alice C: Jack London wrote The Iron Heel, a dystopian novel, in 1908. It sold over 50,000 copies in hardback and according to Wikipedia, London was, for a time, the bestselling and highest earning writer in the USA. It’s the story of the rise of a totalitarian Oligarchy in the United States … Continue reading
Love on the Dole by Walter Greenwood (1933)
Book review by Chris Hopkins. Having now posted blogs about most of Walter Greenwood’s fiction, I realise that these pretty much all refer back to his first novel, Love on the Dole (1933), so for the sake of completeness and to help the blog reader, I ought to add a blog for that first novel. … Continue reading
The Secret Kingdom (1938) by Walter Greenwood
Book review by Chris Hopkins. Walter Greenwood’s father was a hairdresser and by the time he married Elizabeth Matilda Walter he had opened his own hairdresser’s shop (‘Tom’s Hairdressing Saloon’) at 56 Ellor Street, Salford (the premises are pictured in the frontispiece to Greenwood’s memoir, There Was A Time, 1967 and also on the Salford University … Continue reading
His Worship the Mayor (1935) by Walter Greenwood
Book review posted by Chris Hopkins. In 1934, after the success of his first novel, Love on the Dole, was becoming apparent, Greenwood stood (for the second time) in local council elections in Salford, this time winning the very deprived St Matthias ward for Labour by 750 votes (see the Working Class Movement Library article … Continue reading
1944 (1926) by the Earl of Halsbury
Book review by George S: The Earl of Halsbury’s novel, 1944 (published in 1926) is a very readable example of the ‘Future War’ genre’. Before 1914, such books had mostly been grim warnings about possible German invasions. After 1918, they still proliferated, though with a change of emphasis. My favourites are the ones where Bolshevik … Continue reading
Cloudless May (1943) by Storm Jameson
Review by Sylvia D For our women writers and World Wars One and Two session I read Storm Jameson’s Cloudless May (Macmillan, 1943 and still in print) which is a political and psychological exploration of the fall of France in the Second World War. The writing reveals a considerable knowledge of French landscape, culture and … Continue reading
National Provincial by Lettice Cooper (1938)
Review by George Simmers This is a very good example of the middlebrow political novel. Lettice Cooper was a committed socialist, and in part is preaching the need for social change, but she follows many other novelists of the period in positioning herself as the voice of common sense, against all extremes (the way of … Continue reading
Tory Heaven or Thunder on the Right by Marghanita Laski (1948)
We had a very good reading group on Marghanita Laski. She began her novel-writing career with comic political satires, first Love on the Supertax, and then this novel, Tory Heaven. Copies of this novel may be harder to come by than Love on the Supertax, as I haven’t seen it reviewed elsewhere. Review by Thecla … Continue reading
Reading 1900-1950 