Sir Malcolm Stanley Bradbury CBECBE and C.B.E. are abbreviations for Commander of the Order of the British Empire, a grade in the Order of the British Empire.Other uses include:*Calgary Board of Education, public school board for the city of Calgary, Alberta...
(7 September 1932,
SheffieldSheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, the city has grown from its largely industrial roots to encompass a wider economic base...
,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
– 27 November 2000) was a
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
authorAn author is defined both as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created...
and academic.
Born in 1932 in
SheffieldSheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, the city has grown from its largely industrial roots to encompass a wider economic base...
, Bradbury was the son of a railwayman; his family moved to
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
in 1935, but returned to Sheffield in 1941 with his brother and mother. The family later moved to
NottinghamNottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire, England and is one of only eight members of the English Core Cities Group....
and in 1943 Bradbury attended
West BridgfordWest Bridgford is a town in the county of Nottinghamshire, England. West Bridgford is a suburb of Nottingham, despite being outside of the administrative boundaries of the City of Nottingham...
Grammar School where he remained until 1950.
Sir Malcolm Stanley Bradbury CBECBE and C.B.E. are abbreviations for Commander of the Order of the British Empire, a grade in the Order of the British Empire.Other uses include:*Calgary Board of Education, public school board for the city of Calgary, Alberta...
(7 September 1932,
SheffieldSheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, the city has grown from its largely industrial roots to encompass a wider economic base...
,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
– 27 November 2000) was a
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
authorAn author is defined both as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created...
and academic.
Life
Born in 1932 in
SheffieldSheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, the city has grown from its largely industrial roots to encompass a wider economic base...
, Bradbury was the son of a railwayman; his family moved to
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
in 1935, but returned to Sheffield in 1941 with his brother and mother. The family later moved to
NottinghamNottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire, England and is one of only eight members of the English Core Cities Group....
and in 1943 Bradbury attended
West BridgfordWest Bridgford is a town in the county of Nottinghamshire, England. West Bridgford is a suburb of Nottingham, despite being outside of the administrative boundaries of the City of Nottingham...
Grammar School where he remained until 1950. He read English at
University College, LeicesterThe University of Leicester is a research led university based in Leicester, England, with approximately 20,000 registered students - about 13,000 of them full-time students and 7,000 part-time and/or distance learning...
and gained a first-class degree in English in 1953 and continued his studies at
Queen Mary College, University of LondonQueen Mary, University of London is a constituent college of the University of London...
, where he gained his
M.A.A master's degree is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...
in 1955. Between 1955 and 1958 Bradbury moved between teaching posts with the
University of ManchesterThe University of Manchester is a "red brick" civic university located in Manchester, England. It is a member of the Russell Group of large research-intensive universities and the N8 Group for research collaboration...
and
Indiana UniversityIndiana University, founded in 1820 as the Indiana State Seminary and renamed the Indiana College in 1846, is a nine-campus university system in the state of Indiana...
in the USA. He returned to England in 1958 for a major heart operation; such was his heart condition that he was not expected to live beyond middle age. Meanwhile, Bradbury completed his first novel
Eating People is Wrong in 1959 while in hospital.
He married Elizabeth Salt, with whom he would later have two sons, and took up his first teaching post as an adult-education tutor at the
University of HullThe University of Hull, also known as Hull University, is an English university, founded in 1927, located in Hull , a city in the East Riding of Yorkshire. The main campus is located on Cottingham Road in the north west of the city while a smaller campus is located in nearby Scarborough...
. With his study on
Evelyn WaughArthur Evelyn St. John Waugh was an English writer, best known for such darkly humorous and satirical novels as Decline and Fall, Vile Bodies, Scoop, A Handful of Dust, and The Loved One, as well as for serious works, such as Brideshead Revisited and the Sword of Honour trilogy that clearly...
in 1962 he began his career of writing and editing critical books. From 1961 to 1965 he taught at the
University of BirminghamThe University of Birmingham is a British 'Redbrick' university located in the city of Birmingham, England...
. He completed his Manchester University
Ph.D.Ph.D. or PHD may stand for:* Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group* Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip* PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* Parisada Hindu Dharma, an Indonesian organization...
in
American studiesAmerican studies or American civilization is an interdisciplinary field dealing with the study of the United States. It incorporates the study of economics, history, literature, art, the media, film, urban studies, women's studies, anthropology, sociology, and culture of the United States, among...
in 1962, moving to the
University of East AngliaThe University of East Anglia is a public research university in Norwich, England. It was established in 1963, and is a founder-member of the 1994 Group of research-intensive universities. The University was ranked 20th in the The Times Good University Guide 2008, and joint first for student...
(his second novel,
Stepping Westward, appeared in 1965), where he became
ProfessorThe meaning of the word professor varies. In some English-speaking countries, it refers to a senior academic who holds a departmental chair, especially as head of the department, or a personal chair awarded specifically to that individual...
of American Studies in 1970 and launched the World-renowned
M.A. in Creative Writing The University of East Anglia's Creative Writing Course was founded by Sir Malcolm Bradbury and Sir Angus Wilson in 1970. The M.A. is widely regarded as the most prestigious and successful in the country and competition for places is notoriously tough...
course, which
Ian McEwanIan Russell McEwan, CBE, FRSA, FRSL, is a Booker Prize-winning English novelist and screenwriter.-Early life:McEwan was born in Aldershot, the son of Rose Lilian Violet and David McEwan. He spent much of his childhood in East Asia, Germany and North Africa, where his father, a Scottish army...
and
Kazuo IshiguroKazuo Ishiguro OBE is a British novelist. He was born in Nagasaki, Japan, and his family moved to England in 1960. Ishiguro obtained his Bachelor's degree from University of Kent in 1978 and his Master's from the University of East Anglia's creative writing course in 1980...
both attended. He published
Possibilities: Essays on the State of the Novel in 1973,
The History Man in 1975,
Who Do You Think You Are? in 1976,
Rates of Exchange in 1983,
Cuts: A Very Short Novel in 1987, retiring from academic life in 1995. Malcolm Bradbury became a
Commander of the British EmpireThe Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by King George V. The Order includes five classes in civil and military divisions...
in 1991 for services to Literature, and was knighted in 2000.
Malcolm Bradbury died at Priscilla Bacon Lodge, Coleman Hospital, Norwich, on 27 November 2000, attended by his wife and their two sons, Matthew and Dominic. He was buried on 4 December in the churchyard of St Mary's parish church, Tasburgh, a village near Norwich where the Bradburys owned a second home. Though he was not an orthodox religious believer, he respected the traditions and socio-cultural role of the Church of England, and enjoyed visiting churches in the spirit of Philip Larkin's famous poem ‘Churchgoing’.
Works
Bradbury was a productive academic writer as well as a successful teacher; an expert on the
modern novelThe first modern novel has generally been ascribed to a series of picaresque novels, most famously Don Quixote by Cervantes.Later candidates to the title "modern novel" include Pamela by Richardson, Jacques the Fatalist by Denis Diderot, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, The Red and the...
, he published books on
Evelyn WaughArthur Evelyn St. John Waugh was an English writer, best known for such darkly humorous and satirical novels as Decline and Fall, Vile Bodies, Scoop, A Handful of Dust, and The Loved One, as well as for serious works, such as Brideshead Revisited and the Sword of Honour trilogy that clearly...
,
Saul BellowSaul Bellow was a Canadian-born American writer. For his literary contributions, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts...
and
E. M. ForsterEdward Morgan Forster OM, CH , was an English novelist, short story writer, essayist and librettist. He is known best for his ironic and well-plotted novels examining class difference and hypocrisy and also the attitudes towards gender and homosexuality in early 20th-century British society...
, as well as editions of such modern classics as
F. Scott FitzgeraldFrancis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are evocative of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the twentieth century's greatest writers. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost Generation" of the Twenties...
's
The Great GatsbyThe Great Gatsby is a novel by the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. First published on April 10, 1925, it is set on Long Island's North Shore and in New York City during the summer of 1922 and is a critique of the American Dream....
, and a number of surveys and handbooks of modern fiction, both British and American. However, he is best known to a wider public as a novelist. Although he is often compared with
David LodgeDavid John Lodge CBE, is a British author. Lodge often satirises academia in general and the humanities in particular in his novels...
, his friend and a contemporary as a British exponent of the
campus novelA campus novel, also known as an academic novel, is a novel whose main action is set in and around the campus of a university. The genre in its current form dates back to the early 1950s...
genre, Bradbury's books are consistently darker in mood and less playful both in style and language. In 1986 he wrote a short humorous book titled
Why Come to Slaka?, a parody of travel books, dealing with the fictional
Eastern EuropeEastern Europe is a region lying in the Eastern part of Europe. The term is highly context-dependent and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
an country that is the setting for his novel
Rates of Exchange.
He also wrote extensively for
televisionTelevision is a widely used telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images, either monochromatic or color, usually accompanied by sound. "Television" may also refer specifically to a television set, television programming or television transmission...
, including scripting series such as
Anything More Would Be Greedy,
The Gravy Train, the sequel
The Gravy Train Goes East (which explored life in Bradbury's fictional Slaka), and adapting novels such as
Tom SharpeTom Sharpe is an English satirical author, born in London and educated at Elmhurst School for Boys, Lancing College and Pembroke College, Cambridge...
's
Blott on the LandscapeBlott on the Landscape is a novel written in 1975 by Tom Sharpe. It was adapted into a 6-part television series, made by the BBC, in 1985.-Plot:...
and
Porterhouse BluePorterhouse Blue is a novel written by Tom Sharpe, first published in 1974. There was a Channel 4 TV series in 1987 based on the novel, adapted by Malcolm Bradbury...
,
Alison LurieAlison Lurie is an American novelist and academic. She won the Pulitzer Prize for her 1984 novel Foreign Affairs. Although better known as a novelist, she has also written numerous non-fiction books and articles, particularly on children's literature and the semiotics of dress.-Personal...
's
Imaginary Friends and
Kingsley AmisSir Kingsley William Amis, CBE was an English novelist, poet, critic and teacher. He wrote more than twenty novels, three collections of poetry, short stories, radio and television scripts, and books of social and literary criticism...
's
The Green Man.
The History Man
His best known novel
The History ManThe History Man is a campus novel by the British author Malcolm Bradbury set in 1972 in the fictional seaside town of Watermouth in the South of England. Watermouth bears some resemblance to Brighton. For example, there is a frequent and fast train service to London.-Plot introduction:Howard Kirk...
, published in 1975, is a dark satire of academic life in the "glass and steel" universities - the then-fashionable newer universities of England that had followed their "redbrick" predecessors - which in 1981 was made into a successful
BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation, usually referred to by its abbreviation as the "BBC", is the longest established and largest broadcaster in the world...
television serial. The protagonist is the hypocritical Howard Kirk, a sociology professor at the fictional University of Watermouth.
Cuts
Commissioned by Hutchinson as part of their
Hutchinson NovellaHutchinson Novellas was a series of short novels published by the Hutchinson Group in the United Kingdom and Australia in the late 1980s. The books were also published as The Harper Short Novel Series in the United States.-Bibliography :...
series,
Cuts was published in 1987. It used a host of plays on the word 'cuts' to mock the values of
ThatcheristThatcherism describes the ideology, political style and policies of the British Conservative politician Margaret Thatcher, who was leader of her party from 1975 to 1990...
Britain in 1986 and the world of television drama production in which Bradbury had become involved after the adaptation of
The History Man (by
Christopher HamptonChristopher James Hampton CBE, FRSL is an Academy Award-winning British playwright, screen writer and film director. He is best known for his play based on the novel Les Liaisons dangereuses and the film version Dangerous Liaisons and also more recently for writing the nominated screenplay for...
). Bradbury derided the philistinism of television executives who wanted to capture the market of
Brideshead RevisitedBrideshead Revisited is a 1981 British television serial. The teleplay by John Mortimer is based on the novel of the same name by Evelyn Waugh...
and
The Jewel in the Crown at impossibly low cost. He also explored the low esteem accorded writers in the hierarchy of television production.
Quote
- If God had been a liberal, we wouldn't have had the Ten Commandments
The Ten Commandments, or Decalogue, are a list of religious and moral imperatives that, according to Judeo-Christian tradition, were authored by God and given to Moses on the mountain referred to as "Mount Sinai" or "Horeb" in the form of two stone tablets...
; we'd have the Ten Suggestions.
External links