Contemporary Age

The most influential novels written in the last 50 years is Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring (1954-1956),
His mesmerising fantasy world of elves and goblins has spawned thousands of imitators who have unsuccessfully tried to match one of the literary landmarks of the 20th century.

Graham Green was an acute observer in his fellow-man though often in a more humours and light-hearted way than Golding. His novels are sett all over the world and in one of them he provides us with a multifarious panorama of characters and storylines.
His most highly praised works is The Power and The Glory (1940), examines the themes of revolution a d religious persecution. More of his best works are The Heart of Matter and Our Man in Havana.

Stephen Spender's I Think Continually of Those who Were Truly Great achieved wide popularity, He is often associated with pre-war writers although he belongs to this period chronologically

The theme of William Golding's work is the basic nature of man.

His books often take the form of a moral allegory in which the characters, as representatives of the human race, reveal some of the less savoury aspects of man's natural instincts.

Anthony Burgess's Clockwork Orange (1962) was truly significant. The novel is a ringing condemnation of a technologically advanced but morally corrupt world. The anti-hero of the story is a 15 year old boy whose alienation from a soulless society manifests itself in gratious violence, rape and cruelty.

No female writer has been more prolific than Muriel Spark whose witty, satirical novels often examine the hidden strangeness go individuals.

Two of her most known works are The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961) and Momento Mori (1958)

Iris Murdoch was a philosopher and writer. Her uniquely accurate physiological observation of the English middle-classes in her novels have won widespread admiration.
Known novel: The Sea, The Sea (1972)

Philip Larkin was a member of poet group, The Movement, which rejected the intellectual elitism of the modernists and the Bloomsbury Group in favour of a more rational and ironic form of verse. They published their work in a highly influential anthology called New Lines. Larkin's reputation has best stood the test of time.
His poems are about the routine of daily life in modern urban Britain. He in no way romanticises the lives of quiet desperation that are led by many people as they go about their daily business. He uses frank, colloquial language to get his often pessimistic message across.

He simply observes and wittily comments on the world around him, unlike modernists.

John Fowles's The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969) was truly significant. He provides us with a ingenious 20th-century perspective on a Victorian love triangle. Although the novel develops along traditional Victorian lines, the contemporary narrator continuously interjects to put a modern interpretation on the events as they unfold and, instead of a traditional ending, the reader is offered two possible endings. Could safely be categorised as post-modern.