Search results for ""Author J. B. Priestley""

Angel Pavement is one of the great London novels. First published in 1930, it is a social panorama of the city of London seen largely through the eyes of the employees of the firm Twigg & Dersingham, on the first floor of No. 8, Angel Pavement (a small cul-de-sac in the heart of London's commercial district). Angel Pavement provides readers with a vivid picture of ordinary London life before the war and the blitz changed everything dramatically and is set against the background of the great depression. The story centres on the arrival of a mysterious Mr. Golspie from the Baltic region. Business at the firm has been struggling but Mr. Golspie looks set to change its fortunes. His arrival turns life upside down for everyone connected with the firm, but all is not what it seems with Mr. Golspie...

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Disillusioned scriptwriter Gregory Dawson is holed up in a Cornish hotel writing a script he must finish. A chance encounter in the bar sends him back in time to the doomed world of his youth before the slaughter of The First World War. Caught in his own past Dawson recounts his time within the closeknit Yorkshire community in which he came of age and the magic circle of the Alington family, in whose company he spent his happiest days. As this forgotten time takes on a new shape he slowly realises that to have any chance of a bright future he must first exorcise the tragic ghost of his past. ADDITIONAL CONTENT This new edition provides additional information about Priestley's background and his inspiration for the novel. It includes biographical detail which incorporates a `literary tour' of Bruddersford (the imaginary setting for the book based on Priestley's home town of Bradford.) In this way, it places the novel in a biographical and geographical context adding extra layers of interest for readers. In the author's own words, `Bright Day is crammed with profoundly autobiographical material.' Priestley's Bradford comes alive and glows.

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"So all the time, while you were pretending to work, you've been having the most astonishing adventures in that corner?" A forgotten masterpiece from one of Britain’s greatest dramatists, J.B. Priestley. As bankruptcy looms, the ever optimistic Jim Cornelius, partner at import firm Briggs and Murrison, is fighting to keep his creditors happy and his spirits up. Tensions rise with the arrival of Judy, the beautiful, young typist who shows Cornelius the life he could have led... Written for Ralph Richardson in 1935, Priestley observes the politics and tensions of daily office life with searing wit and humanity in this hilarious and heart-breaking story of friendship, unrequited love and business.

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‘An exquisitely-written, generous, funny, thoughtful book about the everyday joys of being alive. I love it.’ Dolly Alderton ‘J. B. Priestley is one of our literary icons of the 20th Century and it is time that we all became re-acquainted with his genius.’ Dame Judi Dench ‘My apology, my little bit of penitence, for having grumbled so much, for having darkened the breakfast table, almost ruined the lunch, nearly silence the dinner party, for all the fretting and chafing, grousing and croaking, for the old glum look and the thrust-out lower lip. So my long-suffering kinsfolk, my patient friends, may a glimmer of that delight which has so often possessed me, but perhaps too frequently in secret, now reach you from these pages.’ There are times when there doesn’t seem much to smile about. And for those times, there is this book. J. B Priestley’s 1949 classic teaches us that joy may be found in even the simplest things, and that we all have the capacity to appreciate them. Delight comprises a series of short essays, all focussing on a single simple pleasure, from reading detective stories in bed to smoking a pipe in the bath; from ‘Cosy planning’ to the earliest summer mornings; and from mineral water in the bedrooms of foreign hotels to the smell of bacon in the morning. Combining poignant memories of his childhood with glimpses of his interior world, panoramas of life abroad with thoughts about writing, music, theatre – some strictly personal, some universal –this highly readable book bursts with humour and literary flare on every page.

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Three unhappy characters, flee from their old lives to seek adventure on the open road. Fate brings them together and into the presence of a broken-down theatrical touring company. Throwing caution to the winds they save the group and set off on an unforgettable tour of the pavillions and provincial theatres of England. First published in 1929.

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‘The finest book ever written about England and the English’ Stuart Maconie ‘J. B. Priestley is one of our literary icons of the 20th Century and it is time that we all became re-acquainted with his genius.’ Dame Judi Dench Three years before George Orwell made his expedition to the far and frozen North in The Road to Wigan Pier, celebrated writer and broadcaster JB Priestley cast his net wider, in a book subtitled ‘a Rambling but Truthful Account of What One Man Saw and Heard and Felt and Thought During a Journey Through England During the Autumn of the Year 1933.’ Appearing first in 1934, it was a huge and immediate success. Today, it still stands as a timeless classic: warm-hearted, intensely patriotic and profound. An account of his journey through England – from Southampton to the Black Country, to the North East and Newcastle, to Norwich and home – English Journey is funny and tender. But it is also a forensic reading of a changing England and a call to arms as passionate as anything in Orwell’s bleak masterpiece. Moreover, it both captured and catalysed the public mood of its time. In capturing and describing an English landscape and people hitherto unseen, writing scathingly about vested interests and underlining the dignity of working people, Priestley influenced the thinking and attitudes of an entire generation and helped formulate a public consensus for change that led to the birth of the welfare state. Prophetic and as relevant today as it was nearly ninety years ago, English Journey is an elegant and readable love letter to a country Priestley finds unfathomable.

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In the months before the First World War, Richard Herncastle joins his Uncle's illusionist act on the Music Hall stage where he comes into contact with larger than life, garish and outrageous characters. Both funny and sad, Lost Empires tells of a young man's awakening to the world of love and sex, and is also a richly coloured portrait of a dying world of theatre and of lives and a society that the Great War would soon change irrevocably. Received with rave reviews when first published in 1965, this Priestley classic was later made into a major television series starring Colin Firth. Priestley delivers a captivating and authentic snapshot of a fascinating period in theatre history whilst creating a social drama with believable and absorbing characterisation.

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'We don't live alone ... We are responsible for each other'A policeman interrupts a rich family's dinner to question them about the suicide of a young working-class girl. As their guilty secrets are gradually revealed over the course of the evening, 'An Inspector Calls', J. B. Priestley's most famous play, shows us the terrible consequences of poverty and inequality. The other powerful plays in this collection - 'Time and the Conways', 'I Have Been Here Before' and 'The Linden Tree' - explore time, fate, free will and the effects of war. 'A vastly talented and exceptionally versatile and wise writer' Iris Murdoch'Priestley was volcanic, fertile ... and never dull' Anthony BurgessIf you enjoyed An Inspector Calls, you might like Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.

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Designed to appeal to the booklover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautiful gift editions of much loved classic titles. Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure. Chosen and introduced by the playwright J. B. Priestley, these twelve marvellous sketches are accompanied by George Cruikshank’s evocative illustrations.Charles Dickens was one of the great chroniclers of London life. From the colourful chaos of dances and gin-shops to the sparse destitution of the pawnshop and the penitentiary, he captured the grime and the glory of the English capital with singular brilliance.Orphans and beggars, lord mayors and murderers, actors, criminals, cab drivers and prostitutes; all rub shoulders in this wonderful selection from Sketches by Boz.

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The full story in quick modern English for a fast-paced read. A respectable household is shocked when a strange man visits them shortly after dinner and proceeds to unravel their prejudices and lies.

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The classic novel brought to life in full colour. A respectable household is shocked when a strange man visits them shortly after dinner and proceeds to unravel their prejudices and lies.

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