This new survey of the writers of the wartime and postwar period reveals how literature in Britain was affected by the most devastating war in history, how it engaged with public events and private feelings during the fighting and throughout the long aftermath of recovery. Drawing on a rich variety of sources, Bernard Bergonzi discusses the work of such writers as Graham Greene, Elizabeth Bowen, Evelyn Waugh, and Joyce Cary, and the immense popularity of T. S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, and other poets during the war years. He also provides a full examination of the new literary figures who emerged in the wake of the conflict, including Angus Wilson, Philip Larkin, Iris Murdoch, and William Golding.