Grumbling at Large E-Book

J. B. Priestley

• Herausgeber: Notting Hill Editions
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

Priestley defined the essay as a 'prose masterpiece in miniature' and he expressed his thoughts on a diverse range of subjects from old age to his horror of conferences. Writing sometimes 'out of devilment' to shake up a complacent public, Priestley's essays reveal the singular voice of one of Britain's most distinguished writers.

Leseprobe

‘As with Larkin, I prefer Priestley grumbling to most other writers enthusing.’ – Alan Bennett

J. B. Priestley (1894–1984) was born in Yorkshire and fought in the Great War before going to Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He was a novelist, playwright, prolific essayist, broadcaster, scriptwriter, social commentator and man of letters. His twenty-eight short ‘Postscripts’, broadcast during the war, were considered more influential than Churchill’s. Priestley’s best-known play, An Inspector Calls, continues to be staged all over the world.

Valerie Grove has been a journalist for fifty years, writing recently about Priestley in the New Statesman (2014) and the Guardian Review (2015). She read English at Girton College, Cambridge and has been on the staff of the Evening Standard, The Sunday Times and The Times, as an interviewer, reviewer and columnist. Her books include biographies of Dodie Smith, Laurie Lee, John Mortimer and Kaye Webb. She is a Tynesider by origin – but has lived in London since adolescence and has four children.

GRUMBLING AT LARGE

–

Selected Essays of J. B. Priestley

–

with an introduction by

Valerie Grove

Much of my writing, I have no doubt, consists of adverse criticism of this life, and so is a sort of grumbling at large. There is some self-indulgence here, I will grant you, but there is also a speck or two of something better. For I have always felt that a writer, if only to justify some of his privileges, should speak for those who cannot easily speak for themselves.

J. B. Priestley, ‘Preface, or The Grumbler’s Apology’, 1949

Contents

– Title Page –– Epigraph –– Introduction –– On Beginning –– A Coincidence –– All About Ourselves –– Having Covered the Card Table –– First Snow –– Carless at Last –– My Forchern –– Dissolution in Haymarket –– On the Moors – – Strange Encounter –– Different Inside –– The Reunion Battalion Dinner –– from Postscripts: 5 June 1940 –– from Postscripts: 9 June 1940–– Eros and Logos –– On Education –– Another Revolution –– Televiewing –– Women Don’t Run the Country –– The Moments – – Tobacco –– Giving Up Conferences –– Critique of 1972 –– On Old Age –– About Hating Airports –– On Happiness –– About the Publisher –– Other titles from Notting Hill Editions –– Copyright –

Valerie Grove

– Introduction –

In a cloud of pipe smoke, J. B. Priestley told his son Tom: ‘I always knew what I was going to do with myself, and I’ve never regretted making writing my profession.’ After another puff, he added, ‘I’m more a writer than a human being, I think.’ This strikingly self-aware declaration was made in front of Tom’s camera, during what was planned as an affectionate television portrait of his father for his 90th birthday. But since JBP died at 89, the film went out on his death, in 1984.