Introduction : literary history from below -- 1. Middlemen, markets, and literary advice -- 2. A chance to exercise our talents -- 3. Fiction and the writing public -- 4. In my own language about my own people -- 5. Class, patronage, and literary tradition -- 6. People's writing and the people's war -- 7. The logic of our times -- 8. Popular writing after the war -- Conclusion : on or about the end of the Chatterley ban
Summary
"In twentieth-century Britain the literary landscape underwent a fundamental change. Aspiring authors - traditionally drawn from privileged social backgrounds - now included factory workers writing amid chaotic home lives, and married women joining writers' clubs in search of creative outlets. In this book, Christopher Hilliard reveals the history of "ordinary" voices." "In capturing the creative lives of ordinary people - would-be fiction-writers and poets who until now have left scarcely a mark on written history - Hilliard reconstructs the literary culture of a democratic age."--BOOK JACKET
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages [297]-370) and index