Snow, C. P. (1905-1980), was an Englishman of many talents who was most famous as a novelist. He was also a scientist, government official, and lecturer.
Snow’s 11-volume series of novels, Strangers and Brothers (1940-1970), is a study of England’s professional and scientific classes. Lewis Eliot is an important character and the narrator in all the novels. Like Snow, Eliot is a man of lower-class birth who works his way into professional life. Eliot appears in many jobs in the series, a device that allows Snow to present a panoramic view of English life. Eliot is a lawyer in Strangers and Brothers (1940) and Time of Hope (1949), a university teacher in The Light and the Dark (1947) and The Masters (1951), and a government official in The New Men (1954). In The Sleep of Reason (1968), Eliot serves as an observer at a murder trial. Colorless and almost stodgy, Eliot is nevertheless an impartial, selfless person. To Snow, he is the kind of person needed to make responsible decisions.
Charles Percy Snow was born on Oct. 15, 1905, in Leicester and earned a doctor’s degree in physics from Cambridge University. As a civil service commissioner from 1945 to 1960, he selected scientists for government projects. Snow was knighted in 1957. He was parliamentary secretary to the minister of technology from 1964 to 1966. In The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution (1960), a published lecture, Snow deplored the lack of communication and of understanding between scientists and nonscientists. In The Realists (1978), Snow discussed the life and work of eight important European novelists. He died on July 1, 1980.
