Synopses & Reviews
The Description for this book, The Auden Generation: Literature and Politics in England in the 1930s, will be forthcoming.
Review
"In this study of a handful of British writers who emerged in the 1930's, Professor Hynes has grouped together a number of poets and novelists whose only real common bond was a sense of coming catastrophe, To put the young Orwell in a book with such a title is disingenuous in view of Orwell's harsh remarks about the 'pansy left.' Hynes is thorough and fair-minded but often dull, but then much of the poetry he quotes is dull and of historical interest only. Sometimes, Hynes makes dubious judgments as when he says that Gollancz's Left Book Club 'left virtually nothing behind.' It could be argued that it had more influence on the result of the 1945 British general election than all the writers referred to in this study." Reviewed by Daniel Weiss, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)