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C. P. Snow's Strangers and Brothers is a roman fleuve comprising eleven novels and covering a period of more than fifty years. The entire sequence is narrated by Lewis Eliot, an intelligent, sensitive, and decent man whose life progresses against the backdrop of some of the critical events of twentieth century history. The sequence is divided into novels of "direct experience" and "observed experience." Although Lewis Eliot is present in the novels of "observed experience," his personal life is given a secondary role, as he concentrates on several figures who have played crucial roles in his life. Snow carefully establishes his narrator's emotional makeup in Time of Hope (which, though Snow's third book in the series, precedes George Passant and The Light and the Dark in the narrative chronology). Set primarily in an unnamed provincial town in the Midlands of England, the novel depicts Lewis' early years, characterized by a sense of insecurity stemming from the Eliot family's genteel poverty following the bankruptcy of his father during World War I. -- From https://www.enotes.com/topics/strangers-brothers (Feb. 25, 2019).… (more)
1888 Strangers and Brothers, by C. P. Snow (read 2 Dec 1984) This is the first in Snow's eleven-volume novel serial. It was published in 1940 in England, and tells a story centering around George Passavant, a solicitor in a provincial English town. Passavant has despicable morals, and I could not have any interest in him. He and Jack and Olive were found not guilty of obtaining money under false pretenses. I suppose the book is "profound" but I could not be too absorbed in the story. I don't know if I will read the other volumes in the series. ( )
This is the first of three volumes in the omnibus edition of C.P. Snow's series, Strangers and Brothers. One entry in the series, also titled Strangers and Brothers, was later revised and re-published as George Passant. Please do not combine LT's work for the individual volume with any LT work for a part of the series. Thank you.
From the author’s Preface to the Omnibus edition, Vol. 1:
"… This [Omnibus] edition … contains the text which I should like to be read. The arrangement of the volumes is different from that in which they have been separately published, and there is a fair amount of amendment both in structural detail and in words. …" [Page xi.]
"… [T]he order of this edition is that in which they have existed in my mind, with one half-exception, and one note about a discarded volume. The half-exception is that for some time I was undecided whether the sequence should begin with George Passant or Time of Hope. George Passant is, as it were, a long insert in Time of Hope. It has significance in Lewis Eliot’s experience which is eventually resolved in the final volumes. …" [Page xii.]
"… Another much more prosaic and practical problem occurred because of the publication of the volumes as independent and self-sufficient novels. … Either one said that the volumes were unintelligible unless the reader is familiar with what has gone before: or, alternatively, one used all appropriate means to make them effectively independent, or at the very least capable of being read on their own account. … This, however, meant, and couldn’t help but mean, a certain amount of repetitive explanation … and, above all, of repetitive introduction of characters. …
In this edition, designed to be read as one, all of that would be irritating or worse, destructive of the unity of the whole. It has been eliminated. …" [Page xiv.]
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C. P. Snow's Strangers and Brothers is a roman fleuve comprising eleven novels and covering a period of more than fifty years. The entire sequence is narrated by Lewis Eliot, an intelligent, sensitive, and decent man whose life progresses against the backdrop of some of the critical events of twentieth century history. The sequence is divided into novels of "direct experience" and "observed experience." Although Lewis Eliot is present in the novels of "observed experience," his personal life is given a secondary role, as he concentrates on several figures who have played crucial roles in his life. Snow carefully establishes his narrator's emotional makeup in Time of Hope (which, though Snow's third book in the series, precedes George Passant and The Light and the Dark in the narrative chronology). Set primarily in an unnamed provincial town in the Midlands of England, the novel depicts Lewis' early years, characterized by a sense of insecurity stemming from the Eliot family's genteel poverty following the bankruptcy of his father during World War I. -- From https://www.enotes.com/topics/strangers-brothers (Feb. 25, 2019).
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