David Storey, Radcliffe

Nicolas Tredell (Independent Scholar - Europe)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: English Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary Britain , 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Gina Lyle (University of Glasgow), Graham MacPhee (University of Manchester), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Jenni Ramone (The Nottingham Trent University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1963

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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Radcliffe

, the third published novel by David Storey, is longer and more ambitious than its two predecessors,

This Sporting Life

(1960) and

Flight into Camden

(1960). Where these earlier novels were largely realistic,

Radcliffe

incorporates realism within a high Gothic mode and its style is intense and dramatic, sometimes melodramatic. The novel focuses on the tortured physical and emotional passion between the fragile Leonard Radcliffe and the muscular Victor Tolson and builds to a corpse-strewn climax.

Storey’s earlier novels, This Sporting Life and Flight into Camden, had central characters who were also first-person narrators, but Radcliffe has a third-person narrator, although not an omniscient one. Even with its title character, the novel rarely offers any in-depth evocation and

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3885 words

Citation: Tredell, Nicolas. "Radcliffe". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 12 May 2023 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=2489, accessed 01 May 2024.]

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