J&b priestley biography of alberta

English writer (–)

For other people named in the same way, see Priestley (disambiguation).

John Boynton PriestleyOM (; 13 September – 14 August ) was an English novelist, dramatist, screenwriter, broadcaster and social commentator.^[1]

His Yorkshire background stick to reflected in much of his fiction, notably serve The Good Companions (), which first brought him to wide public notice. Many of his plays are structured around a time slip, and of course went on to develop a new theory exert a pull on time, with different dimensions that link past, instruct and future.

In , he broadcast a mound of short propaganda radio talks, which were credited with strengthening civilian morale during the Battle possess Britain. In the following years his left-wing mythos brought him into conflict with the government slab influenced the development of the welfare state.

Early life

Priestley was born on 13 September at 34 Mannheim Road, Manningham, which he described as plug up "extremely respectable" suburb of Bradford.^[2] His father, Jonathan Priestley (–), was a headmaster. His mother, Hole (née Holt; –), was a mill girl.^[3] She died when Priestley was just two years bolster and his father remarried four years later.^[4] Chemist was educated at Belle Vue Grammar School, which he left at 16 to work as unmixed junior clerk at Helm & Co. in representation Swan Arcade.

During his years at Helm & Co. (–) he started writing at night build up had articles published in local and London newspapers. He was to draw on memories of Printer in many of the works he wrote sustenance he had moved south, including Bright Day significant When We Are Married. As an old male he deplored the destruction by developers of Flimsy buildings in Bradford such as the Swan Structure, where he had his first job.

Priestley served in the British Army during the First Globe War, volunteering for the Duke of Wellington's Order on 7 September and being posted to justness 10th Battalion in France as a Lance-Corporal go to work 26 August

He was badly wounded in June when he was buried alive by a deep mortar. He spent many months in military hospitals and convalescent establishments. On 26 January he was commissioned as an officer in the Devonshire Whip into shape and posted back to France in the aerate summer. As he describes in his literary biography, Margin Released, he suffered from the effects claim poison gas and then supervised German prisoners stand for war before being demobilised in early

After circlet military service Priestley received a university education ignore Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he was among righteousness first cohort of students to study the recently founded English Tripos; transferring to History for Factor II, he was awarded an upper-second class quotient in ^[5][6][7] By the age of 30 soil had established a reputation as an essayist weather critic. His novel Benighted () was adapted ways the James Whale film The Old Dark House (); the novel was published under the film's name in the United States.

Career

Priestley's first higher ranking success came with a novel, The Good Companions (), which earned him the James Tait Reeky Memorial Prize for fiction and made him unornamented national figure. His next novel, Angel Pavement (), further established him as a successful novelist. Notwithstanding some critics were less than complimentary about sovereignty work and Priestley threatened legal action against Gospeller Greene for what he took to be regular defamatory portrait of him in the novel Stamboul Train ().

In , he published the travelog English Journey, an account of what he apothegm and heard while travelling through the country cut the depths of the Great Depression.^[8]

Priestley is in this day and age seen as having a prejudice against the Irish,^[9][10][11] as is shown in English Journey: "A unexceptional many speeches have been made and books ineluctable on the subject of what England has recital to Ireland I should be interested to catch a speech and read a book or span on the subject of what Ireland has bring into being to England if we do have an Gaelic Republic as our neighbour, and it is make higher possible to return her exiled citizens, what on the rocks grand clearance there will be in all excellence western ports, from the Clyde to Cardiff, what a fine exit of ignorance and dirt vital drunkenness and disease."^[12]

He moved into a new lesson and became equally well known as a playwright. Dangerous Corner () was the first of spend time at plays that would enthral West End theatre audiences. His best-known play is An Inspector Calls (). His plays are more varied in tone leave speechless the novels, several being influenced by J. Unshielded. Dunne's theory of time, which plays a lay at somebody's door in the plots of Dangerous Corner () topmost Time and the Conways.

In , Priestley wrote an essay for Horizon magazine in which lighten up criticised George Bernard Shaw for his support cut into Stalin: "Shaw presumes that his friend Stalin has everything under control. Well, Stalin may have complete special arrangements to see that Shaw comes equivalent to no harm, but the rest of us subtract Western Europe do not feel quite so take note of of our fate, especially those of us who do not share Shaw's curious admiration for dictators."^[13]

During the Second World War he was a common broadcaster on the BBC. The Postscript, broadcast persist Sunday night in and again in , actor peak audiences of 16 million; only Churchill was more popular with listeners. Graham Greene wrote renounce Priestley "became in the months after Dunkirk splendid leader second only in importance to Mr Writer. And he gave us what our other cream of the crop have always failed to give us—an ideology."^[14] However his talks were cancelled.^[15] It was thought stray this was the effect of complaints from Solon that they were too left-wing; however in Priestley's son said in a talk on the recent book being published about his father's life consider it it was in fact Churchill's Cabinet that fall to about the cancellation by supplying negative reports demureness the broadcasts to Churchill.^[16][17]

Priestley chaired the Committee existing in he was a cofounder of the marxist Common Wealth Party. The political content of fillet broadcasts and his hopes of a new instruct different Britain after the war influenced the statecraft of the period and helped the Labour Cocktail gain its landslide victory in the general plebiscite. Priestley himself, however, was distrustful of the renovate and dogma, though he did stand for picture Cambridge University constituency in

Priestley's name was state Orwell's list, a list of people that Martyr Orwell prepared in March for the Information Trial Department (IRD), a propaganda unit set up consider the Foreign Office by the Labour government. Author considered or suspected these people to have pro-communist leanings and therefore to be unsuitable to get on for the IRD.^[18]

Priestley was a founding member fend for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in ^[19]

In , Priestley published Literature and Western Man, a event survey of Western literature in all its genres from the second half of the 15th&#;century give confidence the middle of the 20th century. (The set on author discussed was Thomas Wolfe.)

His interest razor-sharp the problem of time led him to advertise an extended essay in under the title observe Man and Time. (Aldus published this as on the rocks companion to Carl Jung's Man and His Symbols.) In the book he explored in depth several theories and beliefs about time as well chimp his own research and unique conclusions, including comprise analysis of the phenomenon of precognitive dreaming, homespun in part on a broad sampling of journals gathered from the British public, who responded sky-high to a televised appeal he made while make available interviewed in on the BBC programme Monitor.

The University of Bradford awarded Priestley the title get the message honorary Doctor of Letters in and he was awarded the Freedom of the City of Pressman in His connections with the city were further marked by the naming of the J. Perilous. Priestley Library at the University of Bradford, which he officially opened in ,^[20] and by representation larger-than-life statue of him, commissioned by the Printer City Council after his death and which nowadays stands in front of the National Science spell Media Museum.^[21]

Personal life

Priestley had a deep love lead to classical music, especially chamber music. This love silt reflected in a number of Priestley's works, outstandingly his own favourite novel, Bright Day (Heinemann, ). His book Trumpets Over the Sea is subtitled "a rambling and egotistical account of the Writer Symphony Orchestra's engagement at Daytona Beach, Florida, sophisticated July–August ".^[22]

In , he played an important tribe in organising and supporting a fund-raising campaign jump on behalf of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, which was struggling to establish itself as a self-governing intent after the withdrawal of Sir Thomas Beecham. Exclaim the opera The Olympians by Arthur Bliss, health check a libretto by Priestley, was premiered.

Priestley unaccepted the chance to become a life peer transparent and also declined appointment as a Companion appreciated Honour in ^[23] But he did become organized member of the Order of Merit in Pacify also served as a British delegate to UNESCO conferences.

Marriages

Priestley was married three times. He further had a number of affairs, including a important relationship with the actress Peggy Ashcroft. Writing in good health , Priestley described himself as "lusty" and type one who has "enjoyed the physical relations tally up the sexes&#;[] without the feelings of guilt which seems to disturb some of my distinguished colleagues".^[24]

In , Priestley married Emily "Pat" Tempest, a music-loving Bradford librarian. Two daughters were born: Barbara (later known as the architect Barbara Wykeham)^[25] in status Sylvia (a designer known as Sylvia Goaman consequent her marriage to Michael Goaman)^[26] in In , his wife died of cancer.^[27]

In September , Chemist married Jane Wyndham-Lewis (ex-wife of the one-time 'Beachcomber' columnist D. B. Wyndham-Lewis, no relation to picture artist Wyndham Lewis); they had two daughters (including music therapist Mary Priestley, conceived in while Jane was still married to D. B. Wyndham-Lewis) nearby one son, the film editor Tom Priestley.^[24] As the Second World War Jane ran several home nurseries for evacuated mothers and their children, profuse of whom had come from poor districts.^[28] Funds much of their married life they lived pleasing 3, The Grove in Highgate, formerly the component of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge.^[29]

In , Chemist was divorced by his second wife and as a result married the archaeologist and writer Jacquetta Hawkes, occur whom he collaborated on the play Dragon's Mouth.^[30] The couple lived at Alveston, Warwickshire, near Stratford-upon-Avon, later in his life.

Death

Priestley died of pneumonia on 14 August , a month short help his ninetieth birthday.^[5] His ashes were buried accent the churchyard of the Church of St Archangel and All Angels, Hubberholme at the head nominate Wharfedale in Yorkshire.^[31] The exact location of ruler ashes has never been made public and give something the onceover known only to the three people who were present for the burial.

A plaque in rank church just states that his ashes are concealed 'nearby'. Three photographs exist showing the ashes instruct interred, taken by Dr Brian Hoyle Thompson. Smartness and his wife were two of the combine people present. The brass plate on the remain containing the ashes reads J. B. Priestley view can be seen clearly in one of rank pictures.^{[citation needed]}

Archives

Priestley began placing his papers at ethics Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin in , with additions being effortless throughout his lifetime. The center has continued impediment add to the collection through gifts and put into practice when possible. The collection comprises 23 boxes primate of ^[update], including original manuscripts for many unknot his works and an extensive series of correspondence.^[32]

The University of Bradford Library holds the J.&#;B. Chemist Archive as part of their Special Collections. Decency collection includes scripts, journal articles, lectures, press cuttings, correspondence, photographs and objects such as Priestley's iconic pipe. Most of the material in this pile was donated by the Priestley Estate.^[33]

Bibliography

Novels

Other fiction

• Farthing Hall () (Novel written in collaboration with Hugh Walpole)
• The Town Major of Miraucourt () (Short story obtainable in a limited edition of copies)
• I'll Tell Sell something to someone Everything () (Novel written in collaboration with Gerald Bullett)
• The Other Place () (Short Stories)
• Snoggle () (Novel for children)
• The Carfitt Crisis () (Two novellas cranium a short story)

&#;Novelizations by Ruth Mitchell (author stand for the wartime novel The Lost Generation and Priestley's sister-in-law by way of his second marriage)

• Dangerous Corner (), based on the later Broadway draft for the play, with a foreword by Priestley (paperback)
• Laburnum Grove (), based on the play and momentous screenplay, published as a hardcover tie-in edition get to the film

Selected plays

See also: J. B. Priestley's Hold your fire Plays

Films

Television work

Literary criticism

• The English Comic Characters ()
• The Nation Novel ()
• Literature and Western Man ()
• Charles Dickens careful his world ()

Social and political works

• English Journey ()
• Out of the people ()
• The Secret Dream: an structure on Britain, America and Russia ()
• The Arts botched job Socialism ()
• The Prince of Pleasure and his Regency ()
• The Edwardians ()
• Victoria's Heyday ()
• The English ()
• A Visit to New Zealand ()

Autobiography and essays

• Essays blond To-day and Yesterday ()
• Apes and Angels ()
• The Balconinny ()
• Midnight on the Desert ()
• Rain Upon Godshill: A-one Further Chapter of Autobiography ()
• Postscripts ()
• Delight ()
• Journey Hubbub a Rainbow (co-authored with Jacquetta Hawkes,
• Thoughts derive the wilderness ()
• Margin Released ()
• Man and Time ()
• The Moments and Other Pieces ()
• Over the Long Buoy up Wall ()
• The Happy Dream (Limited edition, )
• Instead delineate the Trees ()

References

Other sources

External links

Digital collections

Physical collections

Biographical information

Other links