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Description of  London Writing of the 1930s (Midcentury Modern Writers)

A bold new study of literary and photographic depictions of London in the 1930s London Writing in the 1930s offers a new perspective on the decade that has long been associated with the Auden generation and the rise of documentary. It argues for the centrality of urban fiction and photography to the decade's experiments in representing daily life. Why the periods London-set novels were so often described as 'photographic', and what kind of photographs inspired such comparisons? Tracing representations of London by a wide range of 1930s writers and photographers, including Patrick Hamilton, Jean Rhys, George Orwell, and Bill Brandt, the book's chapters are organised around London's spaces of leisure. Teashops, cinemas, and the night clubs of Soho were central to 1930s negotiations of the interrelation between urban life, gender, and class these settings provide this book both with cultural-historical context and with the basis for its argument about the decade's aesthetic orientations. Read more