Merlin Press Ltd. BRITISH COMMUNISM AND LITERARY THEORY, 1928-1939

BRITISH COMMUNISM AND LITERARY THEORY, 1928-1939
by Philip Bounds

This book examines the many important literary critics and theorists associated with the Communist Party of Great Britain in the 1930s. It provides a systematic and critical account of the communist understanding of the politics of literature and assesses the ways in which Party theorists were influenced by the world communist movement. In particular, it shows that British communists were never content simply to restate Soviet ideas about literature, but always developed them in ways that were innovative and sometimes unorthodox.

The only full-length study of communist literary intellectuals in the cultural and political climate of the 1930s.

A book which fills an important gap in the history of English literature, British Cultural Studies, literary criticism and literary theory, Marxist historiography and the CPGB.

''There is a large gap on my book-shelves. It is also a gap in the history of literary criticism, the missing story of Britain's first Marxist critics. It looks like British Communism and Literary Theory 1928-1939 is at last going to fill this gap. It is a real triumph : wide-ranging, lively, original and engaged, showing the practical application of literary criticism to politics, rescuing some long-lost reputations from the enormous condescension of posterity and reminding us that there was once a time when the Left believed that literature could help change the world.' Prof. Andy Croft

Dr. Philip Bounds holds a PhD in Politics from the University of Wales. He is theauthor of Cultural Studies (1999) and of a forthcoming study of George Orwell.

ISBN. 9780850365948

2007 hardback

Published December 2008

Contents here ...

Price: £30.00