John Wain Summary

Biography EssayA writer of novels, short stories, poetry, and criticism, John Barrington Wain was born in Stokeon- Trent, Staffordshire, to a dentist, Arnold A. Wain, and his wife, Anne. After attendi... Read more

John Wain's first novel, Hurry on Down (1953), along with Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim (1954), seemed in the early 1950s to present a new type of hero--educated and impoverished, dissatisfied with conven... Read more

Perhaps best known as a prolific novelist and poet, John Wain also gained acclaim as a critic and, within the last two decades, as a literary biographer. Wain's first volume of poetry, Mixed Feelings:... Read more

Critical Essay by Jascha Kessler [Wain's] verse way [in "Letters to Five Artists"] is to combine the sonorously slack and portentous tones of late Eliot with the informal chat of... Read more

Critical Essay by Lawrence R. Ries The proper place to begin a study of Wain's poetry is with the examination of his basic premise: human goodness and love shall outlast violence and brutality... Read more

Critical Essay by Jascha Kessler John Wain, elected [to the Oxford Chair of Poetry] in 1973, offers nine lectures in "Professing Poetry," a charming introduction about his relation to O... Read more

Critical Essay by D. A. N. Jones The Pardoner's Tale tells the stories of two men, both "forty-ish", who cannot help falling madly in love, sometimes despairingly, sometimes with... Read more

Critical Essay by Zahir Jamal Hurry On Down is back sporting hard covers to celebrate 25 years in the business. Wain's new introduction repeats, for those who might have forgotten, that he was... Read more

Critical Essay by Julian Moynahan John Wain and Kingsley Amis, whose first novels, "Hurry on Down" and "Lucky Jim," came out the same year, 1953, formed the most considera... Read more