Good, Brave Causes: British Fiction of the 1950s

The 1950s: A Decade of Modern British Fiction, part of Bloomsbury’s “Decade” series that surveys new scholarship and literary criticism within modern and contemporary British fiction, provides an incisive overview of the major trends and themes within British fiction of the 1950s, a period that tends to be somewhat overlooked by scholars. The book’s collection of eight essays covers an array of topics within genre studies and British cultural studies that include Tolkien and fantasy literature, the 1950s homosexual novel, and the influence of jazz and calypso music on the youth novel by writers like Sam Selvon and Colin MacInnes. The book ably demonstrates how the fiction of 1950s Britain, a decade that has been tinged with cultural nostalgia in the media and among Brexiteers, bears similarities to contemporary British fiction in its shifting attitudes towards race, gender, and class.