Christopher Caudwell was the pseudonym of Christopher St. John Sprigg, a British journalist and professional writer who became an important philosopher and critic in the 1930's, author of Illusion and Reality and Studies in a Dying Culture.
In the mid-thirties Caudwell joined the Communist Party; he died in 1937 in the defense of Madrid, leaving the manuscript of Romance and Realism unpublished. This short but comprehensive book is a Marxist interpretation of English literature from Shakespeare to Spender. The author follows the course of English history-the end of feudalism, the age of exploration, the rise of the common man, industrialization, science- producing his particular synthesis of literature as a subjective experience (romance) and as a response to society (realism). The major writers and movements of English literature are discussed, often with brilliant observations.
Romance and Realism is important as Marxist criticism, as a reflection of the acrid definitions of the writers of the thirties (including Auden, Orwell, C. Day Lewis), and as the highly personal view of a talented critic.
Originally published in 1971.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Romance and Realism: A Study in English Bourgeois Literature (Princeton Legacy Library)

Literature & Fiction

CAUDWELL, Christopher

History & Criticism

Princeton University Press

Christopher Caudwell was the pseudonym of Christopher St. John Sprigg, a British journalist and professional writer who became an important philosopher and critic in the 1930's, author of Illusion and Reality and Studies in a Dying Culture.
In the mid-thirties Caudwell joined the Communist Party; he died in 1937 in the defense of Madrid, leaving the manuscript of Romance and Realism unpublished. This short but comprehensive book is a Marxist interpretation of English literature from Shakespeare to Spender. The author follows the course of English history-the end of feudalism, the age of exploration, the rise of the common man, industrialization, science- producing his particular synthesis of literature as a subjective experience (romance) and as a response to society (realism). The major writers and movements of English literature are discussed, often with brilliant observations.
Romance and Realism is important as Marxist criticism, as a reflection of the acrid definitions of the writers of the thirties (including Auden, Orwell, C. Day Lewis), and as the highly personal view of a talented critic.
Originally published in 1971.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

British & Irish

Scenes and Actions: Unpublished Manuscripts

Scenes and actions: Unpublished manuscripts

R. & K. Paul

This book contains Christopher Caudwell’s 1937 treatise, “Illusion and Reality”. It is a work of Marxist literary criticism that develops the idea that each individual era of British poetry stems from a novel economical paradigm in bourgeois society. Christopher St John Sprigg (1907–1937), more commonly known by his pseudonym 'Christopher Caudwell', was a British Marxist poet and thinker. In early life, he made his way to Marxism and set about rethinking everything in light of it, from poetry to philosophy to physics, and became a staunch member of the 'Communist Party of Great Britain'. Many vintage texts such as this are becoming increasingly rare and expensive, and it is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now, in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition. It comes complete with a specially commissioned new biography of the author.

Illusion and Reality

World Scientific Pub. Co.

Considered by many to be the most innovative British Marxist writer of the twentieth century, Christopher Caudwell was killed in the Spanish Civil War at the age of 29. Although already a published writer of aeronautic texts and crime fiction, he was practically unknown to the public until reviews appeared of Illusion and Reality, which was published just after his death. A strikingly original study of poetry's role, it explained in clear language how the organising of emotion in society plays a part in social change and development.Caudwell had a powerful interest in how things worked - aeronautics, physics, human psychology, language and society., In the anti-fascist struggles of the 1930s he saw that capitalism was a system that could not work properly and distorted the thinking of the age. Self-educated from the age of 15, he wrote with a directness that is quite alien to most cultural theory.Culture as Politics introduces Caudwell's work through his most accessible and relevant writing. Material will be drawn from Illusion and Reality, Studies in a Dying Culture and his essay 'Heredity and Development'.

Culture as Politics: Selected Writings

Pluto Press

Biographies & Memoirs

Leaders & Notable People

Pluto Press (UK)

This is a new release of the original 1938 edition.

Studies in a dying culture

Greenwood Press

Central

Studies and Further Studies in a Dying Culture

Monthly Review+press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by CAUDWELL, Christopher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by CAUDWELL, Christopher