John Wain

 

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Chinese (Mandarin)

edition of Strike The

Father Dead by John Wain published 2011 by

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JohnWain 1925 - 1994
John Wain was a writer whose work included novels, poetry, plays, criticism and biography. He was originally associated with the Movement poets and also with the so-called 'Angry Young Men' of the early 1950s, when his first novel Hurry On Down was published. He began as an academic at Reading University after reading English at St John's College, Oxford, where he went  in 1943 at the age of eighteen from his home town in the Potteries. In 1955 he resigned his academic post and earned his living as a full-time writer for the rest of his life. He wrote thirteen novels, culminating in his massive Oxford Trilogy (1988 - 94), the third and last volume  being published a few weeks after his death. He was also well known for his award-winning life of Samuel Johnson (1974). He also steadily wrote and published poetry, both short and long : his long poem Feng was based on the original Danish source for Hamlet's stepfather Claudius in Shakespeare's play. . Based in Oxford from 1963 until his death, he served the University as Professor of Poetry from 1973 to 1978, nominated by Philip Larkin and Peter Levi. He was awarded the CBE for  services to literature in 1984. John Wain was married three times and had four  sons.