In the preface to his novella Dear Illusion (1972), Amis states, "Some novelists find it easy and natural to express themselves in the short-story form as well; I never have, and when I do produce something too short to be called a novel, it is because I have thought of an idea which is suitable for a narrative but which cannot be stretched to the length of a novel." This difficulty aside, the fact that Amis published short fiction over the years 1955 to 1986 suggests that if such ideas came infrequently, he did not abandon the genre.
Amis was born on 16 April 1922 in a south London nursing home, the only child of William Robert and Rosa Lucas Amis. His father was a senior clerk for Colman's Mustard, a devotee of Sir William Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan's operettas, and an ardent tennis and cricket player. Amis inherited his mother's interest in literature; in Memoirs (1991) he writes that she "continued all her life as inveterate a reader as I was in my youth: a book was as much part of her accoutrements at home as handbag and knitting."
He began his education at the local schools, including Norbury College, to which he refers as "one of the most peaceable places I have ever known." In 1934 he embarked on seven years of studies at the City of London School, which his father and two uncles had previously attended.
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