Who are your favorite authors of the 1920’s, which books, and why?
Post WWI society, economic boom, the Jazz Age, widespread use of the automobile, radio, a new optimism, a new cynicism, the new “morality” of the “Lost Generation” writers, rural migration to the cities, the new suburbia, stock market manipulation, social activism, the first modern depictions of the “plight of the American Negro,” the Harlem Renaissance, explorations in sexuality, new laws pertaining to sedition, prohibition, muckraking, and much more had an effect on literature. Which authors or books of this period hit home with you?
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7 Answers
I’ll have to go with H.P. Lovecraft.
Cool Air, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, The Cats of Ulthar, the Doom that Came to Sarnath, The Rats in the Walls, the entire Elder Gods mythos…
I like H P Lovecraft too and Dunsany brought out the King of Elfland’s Daughter in the 1920’s. There was also ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ by Erich Maria Remarque. A lot of reminiscences of trench warfare came out in the 1920’s.
I enjoy good writing, and it’s hard to beat Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.
I haven’t seen the new movie version of it yet, but I can’t imagine it properly capturing the book. It may succeed as a movie, but not as this story.
Though I do not think of it as a 1920’s book, I love Kahlil Gibran’s “The Prophet”, which was from 1926. No book ever washed over me like this.
I’d have to go with Fitzgerald too. Tried some Gertrude Stein and couldn’t make heads or tails (or tales) of it. Went through an Evelyn Waugh phase and found him darkly funny. In poetry, I’m fond of T.S. Eliot and Frost.
All the literature that springs to mind is from the 30’s. But I did really love Bertrand Russell’s Marriage and Morals.
I second (or third) The Prophet By Kahlil Girban. I can read it over and over and never tire of the soaring beauty and truth of its prose. I liked A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh enough to read lots of Milne. Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises made an early impression on me. Why am I such a freak? Blame Hemingway. What isn’t Hemingway’s fault can be laid at the feet of James Joyce for having written Ulysses.
Hear Hear to @janbb‘s endorsement or T.S. Elioit and Robert Frost.
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