Wain, John (1925-1994), a British novelist and literary critic, established a reputation as a penetrating observer of the English social scene in the 1950’s. Wain’s satirical attacks on English society led to him being identified with a group of irreverent English writers called the “Angry Young Men.” Wain became famous with his first novel, Hurry on Down (published in the United States as Born in Captivity, 1953). The novel satirizes the English class system.
Wain’s other novels include Living in the Present (1955), The Young Visitors (1965), A Winter in the Hills (1970), The Pardoner’s Tale (1978), Young Shoulders (1982), Where the Rivers Meet (1988), and Comedies (1990). His witty poems were published in such collections as A Word Carved on a Sill (1956), Weep Before God (1961), Feng (1975), and Poems 1949-1979 (published in 1980). His considerable literary criticism includes Essays on Literature and Ideas (1963), The Living World of Shakespeare (1964), Samuel Johnson (1974), and Professing Poetry (1977). Wain wrote the autobiographies Sprightly Running (1962) and Dear Shadows (1986).
John Barrington Wain was born on March 14, 1925, in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England, and educated at Oxford University. He was a lecturer in English at Reading University from 1947 to 1955, when he became a full-time writer. He was also a professor of poetry at Oxford University from 1973 to 1978. Wain died on May 24, 1994.
