Book review by Chris Hopkins. Strictly speaking There Was a Time is a memoir and not a novel and so perhaps should not properly be reviewed here (and moreover it was published in 1967!). However, there are a few precedents on the blog for looking at non-fiction writing by fiction writers, and also some of … Continue reading
Tagged with Walter Greenwood …
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 Trelooe Trilogy by Walter Greenwood [So Brief the Spring (1952), What Everybody Wants (1954) and Down by the Sea (1956)].
Book review posted by Chris Hopkins (the review is slightly longer than usual – it seemed best to review the whole trilogy in one post). Between 1952 and 1956 Greenwood completed his Trelooe Trilogy (published by Hutchinson – all references are to the first editions). The trilogy was set in Cornwall, where Greenwood had holidayed … 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
Standing Room Only (1936) by Walter Greenwood
Book Review posted by Chris Hopkins. Walter Greenwood is best remembered (indeed often only remembered) for his first novel, Love on the Dole (1933). This review is one of a series of blogs where I will try to start reviving a fuller memory of his literary career through introducing the other novels he wrote after … Continue reading
Something in My Heart (1944) by Walter Greenwood
Book review posted by Chris Hopkins. Walter Greenwood is, of course, famous as the Salford author of the best remembered thirties depression novel, Love on the Dole, a novel which has had considerable impact, then and since. In fact, he lived for the rest of his life as a professional author, writing new works and … Continue reading
The Cleft Stick (1937) by Walter Greenwood
Review by Sylvia D: The Cleft Stick is a collection of 15 short stories. Although the book wasn’t published until 1937, all but two of the stories were written between 1928 and 1931. As Greenwood says in the Preface, they ‘were the products of the ‘prentice hand’ – (p9). They are all set in the … Continue reading
Only Mugs Work (1938) by Walter Greenwood
Book Review by George S: Only Mugs Work is subtitled ‘A Soho Melodrama’, so Walter Greenwood is a long way from the Salford of Love on the Dole. The novel starts promisingly with a bustling description of Soho, centre of the theatre and film worlds by day, and by night something more sinister:
Reading 1900-1950 