This essay argues that Nichols effectively destroyed his own critical reputation through becoming someone who could and would write almost anything for money. The changing critical landscape of the twentieth century that valued modernist experimentation above other, more accessible forms of writing also increasingly denigrated the professional writer. Read Twenty-Five - An Autobiography by Beverley Nichols available from Rakuten Kobo. When an angry Lady Julia Cressey spots one of Brian’s stories about her, it looks like the end of his journalism careeruntil she sees how. Brian Elme ekes out a livelihood making up stories about celebrities for a tabloid gossip column. Leavis as contributing to a breakdown in standards of style. With a new introduction by David Deutsch. Nichols’ accessible narrative style drew particularly on contemporary popular journalism, which was regarded by influential critics such as Q. Nichols’ novel Crazy Pavements (1927) influenced Evelyn Waugh’s 1930 novel Vile Bodies, but was not part of the lauded avant-garde in the 1920s, and is instead a case-study in the modes of writing and publishing that condemned a work to the derogatory category ‘middlebrow’. Nichols was a key cultural figure and best-selling novelist in the 1920s, yet now exists only as an occasional footnote in academic criticism. Crazy pavements by Beverley Nichols, 2013, Valancourt Books edition, in English - First Valancourt Books edition. This essay re-examines the work and reputation of ‘the original Bright Young Thing’, Beverley Nichols (1898-1983).
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