Books by Kingsley Amis
Born: 04/16/1922; Died: 10/22/1995Kingsley Amis Biography & Notes
Sir Kingsley Amis (April 16, 1922 - October 22, 1995) was an English novelist, poet, critic, and teacher. He was the author of twenty novels, three collections of poetry, a number of short stories, and ten books of social or literary criticism.
Born in London, he was educated at the City of London School and St. John's College, Oxford. After service in the army with the Royal Corps of Signals he completed his university studies in 1947 and then worked as a lecturer in English at the University of Wales Swansea (1948-61) and in Cambridge (1961-63).
Amis achieved popular success with his first novel Lucky Jim, which is often considered the exemplary novel of the Fifties. The novel won the Somerset Maugham Award for fiction and Amis was placed in a group of young writers labelled Angry Young Men. Lucky Jim is considered a seminal work, the first to feature an ordinary person as anti-hero.
Amis had long been interested in science fiction. His book New Maps of Hell (1960?) was his interpretation of the better aspects of science fiction. He was very enthusiastic about the dystopian works of Frederick Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth, and in New Maps, he coined the term "comic inferno" for a type of humorous dystopia, particularly common in the works of Robert Sheckley. With the Sovietologist Robert Conquest he produced a series of science fiction anthologies Spectrum I-IV, which drew heavily on Astounding Science Fiction from the 1950s for its sources. In his own writings in the science fiction/fantasy genre, he wrote two novels, The Alteration, an alternate history novel set in a 20th century Britain where the Reformation never happened, and a supernatural/horror novel, The Green Man, later adapted as a television production by the BBC
As a young man, Amis was a vocal Stalinist and member of the Communist Party. He became increasingly disillusioned with communism, the final break occuring with the Soviet invasion of Hungry in 1956. Thereafter, Amis became stridently anti-communist, even reactionary. His change of political heart was discussed in his 1967 essay "Why Lucky Jim Turned Right" and creeps into his later works such as "Russian Hide and Seek" (1980).
He was married twice, first in 1948 to Hilary. In 1965, he married novelist Elizabeth Howard; they divorced in 1983. He had three children: two sons, including Martin Amis, and a daughter. He was knighted in 1990.
Born in London, he was educated at the City of London School and St. John's College, Oxford. After service in the army with the Royal Corps of Signals he completed his university studies in 1947 and then worked as a lecturer in English at the University of Wales Swansea (1948-61) and in Cambridge (1961-63).
Amis achieved popular success with his first novel Lucky Jim, which is often considered the exemplary novel of the Fifties. The novel won the Somerset Maugham Award for fiction and Amis was placed in a group of young writers labelled Angry Young Men. Lucky Jim is considered a seminal work, the first to feature an ordinary person as anti-hero.
Amis had long been interested in science fiction. His book New Maps of Hell (1960?) was his interpretation of the better aspects of science fiction. He was very enthusiastic about the dystopian works of Frederick Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth, and in New Maps, he coined the term "comic inferno" for a type of humorous dystopia, particularly common in the works of Robert Sheckley. With the Sovietologist Robert Conquest he produced a series of science fiction anthologies Spectrum I-IV, which drew heavily on Astounding Science Fiction from the 1950s for its sources. In his own writings in the science fiction/fantasy genre, he wrote two novels, The Alteration, an alternate history novel set in a 20th century Britain where the Reformation never happened, and a supernatural/horror novel, The Green Man, later adapted as a television production by the BBC
As a young man, Amis was a vocal Stalinist and member of the Communist Party. He became increasingly disillusioned with communism, the final break occuring with the Soviet invasion of Hungry in 1956. Thereafter, Amis became stridently anti-communist, even reactionary. His change of political heart was discussed in his 1967 essay "Why Lucky Jim Turned Right" and creeps into his later works such as "Russian Hide and Seek" (1980).
He was married twice, first in 1948 to Hilary. In 1965, he married novelist Elizabeth Howard; they divorced in 1983. He had three children: two sons, including Martin Amis, and a daughter. He was knighted in 1990.
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The Amis Anthology by Kingsley Amis ( 1988) |
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The Amis Collection Selected Non-Fiction, 1954-1990 by Kingsley Amis ( 1991) |
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The Amis Story Anthology by Kingsley Amis ( 1992) |
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An Arts Policy by Kingsley Amis ( 1979) |
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The Biographer's Moustache by Kingsley Amis ( 1995) |
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Black Paper 1975 The Fight for Education by Kingsley Amis, C.B. Cox, Rhodes Boyson ( 1975) |
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Collected Poems, 1944-1979 by Kingsley Amis ( 1980) |
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Collected Short Stories by Kingsley Amis ( 1980) |
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Colonel Sun by Kingsley Amis ( 2001)
British author Kingsley Amis penned this James Bond novel under the pseudonym Robert Markham following the death of Bond's creator, Ian Fleming, in 1964. Amis never wrote another, and British Agent 007 remained in hiding for more than a decade until 1981, when John Gardner revived him in LICENSE RENEWED.
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The Crime of the Century by Kingsley Amis ( 1990) |
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The Darkwater Hall Mystery by Kingsley Amis ( 1997) |
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Dear Illusion by Kingsley Amis ( 1972) |
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Difficulties With Girls A Novel by Kingsley Amis ( 1989)
Patrick Standish finds himself at the center of a whirlwind of woman trouble involving his neighbors, his coworkers, and his lovely wife, Jenny.
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Ending Up by Kingsley Amis ( 1974) |
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Every Day Drinking by Kingsley Amis ( 1983) |
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The Everyday Drinking The Distilled Kingsley Amis by Kingsley Amis ( 2008)
A celebratory volume of writings by the late author of
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Fight for Education:a Black Paper A Black Paper by Kingsley Amis, Critical Quarterly Society ( 1968) |
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The Folks That Live on the Hill by Kingsley Amis ( 1990)
A retired librarian and devoted club member, Harry Caldecote's plans to enjoy his golden years are undermined by his overwhelming sense of responsibility--toward his ex-wives, bullied brother, ne'er-do-well son, lesbian daughter, and alcoholic niece.
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Girl, 20 by Kingsley Amis ( 1989)
Kitty Vandervane, the wife of a philandering orchestra conductor, asks Douglas Yandell, a music writer and family friend, to find out who is the current flame.
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The Great British Songbook by Kingsley Amis, James Cochrane ( 1986) |
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The Green Man by Kingsley Amis ( )
The Green Man's Maurice Allington is a worldly publican, but haunted. His pub is inhabited by the spirit of Dr Thomas Underhill, the seventeenth-century scholar rumoured to have killed his wife. The local sexton had refused to dig Underhill's grave. And the rector has declined to officiate at his funeral. And there are skeletons in the cupboard of Allington's own domestic affairs, just rattling to get out.
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How's Your Glass A Quizzical Look at Drinks and Drinking by Kingsley Amis ( 1984) |
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I Like It Here by Kingsley Amis ( 1993) |
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I Want It Now. by Kingsley Amis ( 1969)
In his search for fame and fortune, Ronnie Appleyard encounters an extraordinary young woman who causes him to question his ruthless tactics.
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Jake's Thing by Kingsley Amis ( 1980)
A lecherous Oxford don, rapidly approaching sixty and horrified at the dwindling resources of his normally hyperactive libido, seeks professional advice and tours the modern inferno of self-awareness and sexuality.
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James Bond 007 Colonel Sun by Kingsley Amis ( 2006) |
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The King's English A Guide to Modern Usage by Kingsley Amis ( 1998)
The late Kingsley Amis's last word on the state of the language, "The King's English" is more frolicsome that "Fowler's", lighter than the "OED", and brimming with the strong opinions and razor-sharp wit that made Amis so popular--and so controversial.
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The Letters of Kingsley Amis by Kingsley Amis, Zachary Leader ( 2001)
Collects the letters of the British novelist to individuals including Philip Larkin, Victor Gollancz, Elizabeth Jane Howard, and Brian Aldiss.
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Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis ( 1976)
This best-selling comic novel by Kingsley Amis, one of the "Angry Young Men" who came to prominence in the early 1950s, describes the frustrations met by Jim Dixon, a lecturer at a provincial British university, in his academic and private life. Approaching middle age and as yet unpublished, untenured, and unattached, Dixon needs most of all to impress Professor Welch, his department head, but is more concerned with winning over Christine, the beautiful girlfriend of Welch's obnoxious son, Bertrand. Immensely popular when first published in 1955, LUCKY JIM influenced an entire school of academic novelists, from David Lodge to A.N. Wilson.
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Lucky Jim's Politics by Kingsley Amis ( 1968) |
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Mr. Barrett's Secret and Other Stories by Kingsley Amis ( 1993) |
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New Maps of Hell A Survey of Science Fiction by Kingsley Amis ( 1975)
A defense of science fiction by the celebrated English novelist and critic ("The Alteration"). These essays are based on a series of lectures given by Amis at Princeton University in 1958.
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The New Oxford Book of English Light Verse by ( 1978)
An entertaining anthology of more than two hundred fifty verses by some eighty authors ranges from satire to nonsense and from Shakespeare to Philip Larkin.
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The New Oxford Book of Light Verse by ( 1987)
Kingsley Amis has achieved his main objective in compiling The New Oxford Book of Light Verse--to raise a good-natured smile--by providing a witty and consistently entertaining survey of this tradition of English Writing. The book ranges from satire to nonsense verse, from deft vers de societe to epigrams and limericks.
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Old Devils A Novel by Kingsley Amis ( 1988)
When Alun and Rhiannon Weaver return home to Wales after living in London for thirty years, their celebrity status and past connections begin to stir up trouble.
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On Drink by Kingsley Amis ( 1973) |
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The Oxford Book of Ballads by ( 1982)
A collection of one hundred and fifty ballads from England and Scotland which were chosen for their adherence to oral tradition.
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The Pleasure of Poetry From His Daily Mirror Column by Kingsley Amis ( 1990) |
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The Riverside Villas Murder by Kingsley Amis ( 1973) |
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Rudyard Kipling by Kingsley Amis ( 1986)
Briefly traces the life and career of the British journalist and writer, discusses his major works, and assesses his place in literature.
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Rudyard Kipling and His World by Kingsley Amis ( 1975)
Briefly traces the life and career of the British journalist and writer, discusses his major works, and assesses his place in literature.
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The Russian Girl by Kingsley Amis ( 1995)
Richard Vaisey is a respected scholar specializing in Russian studies when Anna Danilova arrives on campus. A visiting Russian poet with a mission more than literary, Anna challenges his integrity--and his marriage. Richard's beautiful but unspeakably monstrous wife, Cordelia, seeks revenge on he adulterous husband, determined to ruin him by canceling his credit cards and reporting his car as stolen to the police. But Richard must face even further humiliating consequences, for the seductive Anna is also an irremediably bad poet.
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Russian Hide-And-Seek by Kingsley Amis ( 1980) |
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Spectrum A Science Fiction Anthology by Kingsley Amis ( 1989)
This anthology of short science fiction was edited by the celebrated English author, Kingsley Amis.
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Stanley and the Women A Novel by Kingsley Amis ( 1988)
Looking for emotional support after learning that his son is going mad, Stanley Duke, a beleaguered advertising executive, turns to Nowell, his first wife, who blames him for the boy's illness, and his second wife, Susan, who confesses she hates him.
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Take a Girl Like You by Kingsley Amis ( 1960)
This comic novel concerns the ill-fated romance between Jenny Bunn, a working-class girl from the north of England, and Patrick Standish, a master of Latin at an expensive boys' school.
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We Are All Guilty by Kingsley Amis ( 1992)
Out of work, bored, and living with his parents in the slums of London, Clive Raynor breaks into a warehouse for kicks, but when the night watchman is seriously injured, Clive is blamed and pigeonholed as a typical hood.
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What Became of Jane Austen And Other Questions by Kingsley Amis ( 1970) |
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What Became of Jane Austen? And Other Questions by Kingsley Amis ( 1971) |
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You Can't Do Both by Kingsley Amis ( 1996)
Describes the coming-of-age of a young man in England during the early part of the century.
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