Victor Canning (1911-1986) might be judged to have had three separate writing careers. From 1934 to 1940 he wrote novels which were mainly rustic comedies. After war service he became an established and very successful writer of light escapist thrillers. Then from 1969 he wrote a magnificent group of darkly pessimistic novels, still broadly in the suspense genre but with important themes and sharply observed characters. Although one of these, The Rainbird Pattern (1972), was filmed by Hitchcock in 1975, he did not enjoy great popular success with the late books. He seems to have left behind the public he had built up for his slick entertainments of the ’50s and ’60s, while the readership which could have relished the late books

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First published 06 November 2007

Citation: Higgins, John Joseph. "Victor Canning". The Literary Encyclopedia. 6 November 2007.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=11841, accessed 20 November 2009.]