Although he claims, in the Introduction [to All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go], to having never been an Angry Young Man in the 1950s (they were all ten years older than he), Malcolm Bradbury's stance in this collection of witty sociological essays is precisely that of the provincial, anti-establishment, pooh-poohing intellect associated with Amis, Osborne, and Wain in their prime.

First published in 1960 and 1962, his two books, Phogey! How to Have Class in a Classless Society and All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go or the Poor Man's Guide to the Affluent Society, collected here in a new edition, are masterly studies in the never-had-it-so-good Britain that emerged from the post-war decade of austerity, and discovered coffee bars, geometric furniture, American slang, beehive hairdos, Swedish glassware, sun-lounges and sociology … then tried to work out a British life-style to go with the new toys.

Bradbury's central victim is...