Priestley
Priestley's output was vast and varied - he wrote over one hundred
novels, plays, and essays, and is best known as the author of the
novel THE GOOD COMPANIONS (1929). A man of versatility, he was a
patriot, cosmopolitan Yorkshire man, professional amateur, cultured
Philistine, reactionary radical, and a common-sense spokesman for the
ordinary man-in-the-street. Priestley refused both knighthood and
peerage,John) Boynton Priestley (1894-1984)
Priestley was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire, in the north of
England. His father, Jonathan Priestley, was a prosperous
schoolmaster; his mother died when he was an infant. Priestley
attended Bradford Grammar School, but left his studies at the age of
sixteen and worked as a junior clerk in a firm (1910-1914). In
Bradford Priestley began to write poetry for his own pleasure and
contribute articles to local and London papers. During WW I Priestley
served with the Duke of Wellington's and Devon regiments, and survived
the front lines in Flanders. From 1919 he studied literature, history
and political science at Bradford and at Cambridge, receiving his B.A.
in 1921. From 1922 he worked as a journalist in London, starting his
career as an essayist and critic at various newspapers and
periodicals, including the New Statesman. His first collection of
essays, BRIEF DIVERSIONS, appeared in 1922.
Priestley gained international popularity with his novel The Good
Companions, a tale about the adventures of a troop of travelling
players. "To say that these men paid their shillings to watch
twenty-two hirelings kick a ball is merely to say that a violin is
wood and catgut, that Hamlet is so much paper and ink. For a shilling
the Bruddersford United AFC offered you Conflict and Art." (From The
Good Companions) It was followed by ANGEL PAVEMENT (1930), depicting