J. B. Priestley: Man of Letters

Abstract

THIS SEPTEMBER marks the seventy‐fifth birthday of J. B. Priestley, the ‘old rhinoceros of English letters’ as C. P. Snow once described him, probably the last of the old‐style writers, professionals to their finger tips, ready at an instant to write whatever was required of them, often at very short notice. More than thirty years ago Priestley outlined his ambitions in this direction. ‘I have a restless nature, easily bored,’ he confessed, ‘and so I flit from one kind of work to another, partly sustained by a very genuine interest in the technical problems of all forms of writing.’ He continued: ‘I have always wanted to be an all‐round man of letters on the eighteenth‐century plan, which allowed or commanded a man to write essay or poem, novel or play, just as he pleased.’

Citation

Day, A.E. (1969), "J. B. Priestley: Man of Letters", Library Review, Vol. 22 No. 2, pp. 59-62. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb012517