Showing results for "howard spring"

In "Time and the Hour," Howard Spring intricately weaves a narrative that explores the profound themes of time, destiny, and the human condition within the backdrop of post-World War I England. The novel employs a rich, evocative prose style, characterized by Spring's meticulous attention to detail and deep psychological insight into his characters' lives. Set against a rapidly changing social landscape, the story examines how individual choices shape the course of one's life, particularly...

In "Fame is the Spur," Howard Spring crafts a sweeping narrative that examines the tumultuous rise and fall of an aspiring politician, exploring themes of ambition, fame, and the moral compromises often encountered on the path to success. The novel is structured in a highly engaging, almost episodic style, rich with character development and societal insights that reflect the shifting landscape of early 20th-century Britain. Spring's prose is both lyrical and incisive, deftly portraying th...

The story of William Essex, who rose from humble beginnings to become a successful dramatist and novelist, and his friend Dermot O'Riordon, a fervent Irish patriot and founder of a great London furnishing house; and their sons, Oliver Essex and Rory O'Riordon. Plus some other assorted characters, from old Mr Moscrop and his daughter Nellie, and Maeve O'Riordon. Those boys grow up in friendship, but the passing years create circumstances that divide them as their fathers learn the hard way ...

Rachel Rosing by Howard Spring is about the ambitious, beautiful, and calculating social climber Rachel Rosing, focusing on her pursuit of fame and fortune as an actress, depicting her ruthless ascent through marriage and career. But will this be met with eventual downfall? Can she lose everything, including her beauty, and be left with only an empty life?

“Shabby Tiger” by Howard Spring is about the gritty, bohemian life in 1930s Manchester, focusing on young, rebellious artist Nick Faunt and his unconventional relationships, particularly with the forthright Anna Fitzgerald, exploring themes of art, class, love, and survival amidst a colorful cast of characters like bookie Piggie White and social climber Rachel Rosing. It details their struggles to make ends meet, Nick's artistic ambitions, and the introduction of Rachel, a key figure in th...

"Heaven Lies About Us" recounts Spring's childhood in Cardiff during the closing years of the 19th century. He grew up in an impoverished but loving family and left school at age 12 to support them after his father's death. The path of a writer: Spring's memoir details his humble beginnings working as an errand boy for a newspaper. This experience was his first step into the world of journalism and literature, which he pursued through evening classes, before later becoming a best-selling a...

In a celebrated essay, Macaulay sums up Bacon's career as a "chequered spectacle of so much glory and so much shame." The words may fitly enough be applied not only to Bacon's life but to most men's lives and to most large experiments of human action. In 1942 I began to write a novel whose purpose was to trace the course of one such experiment from its beginnings in the eighties of last century up to our present time. I intended to call this novel, which would have been very long, So Much ...

“A Sunset Touch” by Howard Spring is about Roger Menheniot, a middle-aged, reclusive London bank clerk who dreams of escaping his dull life by buying a house in his ancestral Cornwall, a dream unexpectedly fulfilled after meeting a distant American cousin during WWII, leading him to discover love, lust, and complex local people as his life transforms from drab to passionate and complicated.

When they buried the Old Warrior there was only one small wreath to go on the coffin... John Hamer Shawcross never forgot that moment.Hamer Shawcross is born into a poor but aspirational working-class family in Manchester. Studious and hard-working, he becomes a socialist activist, goes into politics and rises to becomes part of the privileged upper classes he began by opposing. Hamer's trajectory is mirrored by the rise of the Labour movement in Britain from the mid-19th ...

What a place it was, that dark little house that was two rooms up and two down... I don't remember to this day where we all slept, though there was a funeral now and then to thin us out.This is the powerful story of two hard-driven men – one a celebrated English novelist, the other a successful Irish entrepreneur – and of their sons, in whom are invested all their fathers' hopes and ambitions. Oliver Essex and Rory O'Riorden grow up as friends, but in the years after the G...

Beginning just before the outbreak of the First World War, this is the story of the moral values of the age. It is a story of illegitimacy and deception—where a child has to come to terms with discovering who his mother really is. It is a story in which romance is set against the backdrop of the growth of fascism in Europe, where London has become a refuge for persecuted Jews, and where Dunkerley newspaper reporter Joe Morrison has become a thorn in the sides of the European dictators. It ...

The theme of this particular book (set around Manchester and Cornwall, as so many of his are) is that there is no armour against fate; and the period it covers was certainly a fateful one, ranging as it does from the close of the Victorian era through two World Wars. It’s told in the first person, and takes the protagonist from a childhood of poverty to the distinction of the Royal Academy. If you’re new to Howard Spring, here is an excellent starting point.