The Search (1934), C. P. Snow’s third novel, focuses on the awakening, pursuit and eventual loss of a scientific vocation. It followed two excursions into genre fiction, and is the kind of realistic novel with which Snow would become primarily associated: it explores the friendships, rivalries and enmities between men in a highly competitive and demanding professional world and also examines, to a lesser but significant extent, their erotic and emotional relationships with women. The Search dramatizes and analyzes the complex dynamics of hope, ambition, idealism, disappointment and failure in ways which anticipate Snow’s eleven-volume “Strangers and Brothers” series (1940-1970), but it is more than a trial run for “Strangers and Brothers”: it stands as a substantial novel in its own right which addresses issues relating to science more fully than any of Snow’s other...
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Citation: Tredell, Nicolas. "The Search". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 15 January 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=19403, accessed 09 June 2026.]
