Cyril Connolly, Enemies of Promise

Chris Baldick (Goldsmiths College, University of London)

Ed. by Chris Baldick, Goldsmiths College, University of London
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.08: English Writing and Culture of the early Twentieth Century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: Chris Baldick (Goldsmiths College, University of London), Peter Childs (Birmingham Newman University), Louise McDonald (Birmingham Newman University), Andrew Radford (University of Glasgow)

Dates

First circulation or publication Sep 1938

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Non-Fiction
- Autobiography (literary)
- Commentary / Criticism (literary)

Resources

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Enemies of Promise

(1938) is a prose work by the English critic Cyril Connolly (1903-74), consisting of three parts, of which the third and longest, “A Georgian Boyhood”, is an autobiographical reminiscence of Connolly’s schooldays, while the first two offer provocative and richly quotable reflections on the evolution of the literary “modern movement” in the early twentieth century, and on the various ways in which a modern young writer’s “promise” may be squandered. The book is one of the more important documents of the younger English literary generation of the 1930s, comparable in some parts with Christopher Isherwood’s

Lions and Shadows

(1938) and in others with George Orwell’s essay “Inside the Whale” (1940). It offers a lively account of that generation’s…

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2071 words

Citation: Baldick, Chris. "Enemies of Promise". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 23 August 2023 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=13635, accessed 27 April 2024.]

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