Roy Fuller has been considered "a norm against whom other poets of the past thirty years may be judged," and as "the one philosophical poet of undoubted capability writing in England today." His novels, though less highly esteemed by critics, are a significant part of his creative output, for he is not simply a poet who writes novels on the side, nor a novelist who writes occasional poems. He is, on a more modest scale, a poet-novelist like Hardy or D. H. Lawrence.

He was born 11 February 1912 to Leopold Charles and Nellie Broadbent Fuller in Failsworth, Lancashire, where his father was a factory manager. When Roy was ten, the family moved to Blackpool, where he received his schooling. He has characterized his early life as "provincial," his background as "non-literary," his schooling "uninspired," and his further education "truncated." He was articled to a solicitor at sixteen and passed...