C. P. Snow is best-known for his compelling eleven-novel sequence “Strangers and Brothers” (1940-1970) and for his controversial 1959 Rede Lecture “The Two Cultures”, which argued that there was a “gulf of mutual incomprehension” between literary intellectuals and scientists (Snow, 1965, 4) and provoked much debate, most notably a slashing attack from the literary critic F. R. Leavis (1895-1978). In “Strangers and Brothers”, the first-person narrator, Lewis Eliot, explores twentieth-century English life in a variety of settings, from the back streets of a Midlands town to the chambers of Lincoln's Inn, the great houses of the rich, the combination room of a Cambridge college, and the corridors of Westminster and Whitehall – the “corridors of power”, as Snow called…

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Citation: Tredell, Nicolas. "C. P. Snow". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 23 June 2006; last revised 31 January 2007. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4138, accessed 19 March 2024.]

4138 C. P. Snow 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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