The English novel in the twentieth century

Martin Green chose six novelists he considers to be the most exciting English novelists of the twentieth century: Kipling, Lawrence, Joyce, Woolf, Emes, and Lessen. In this work, he explores the response of these writers and their attitude towards the signs of the fall of the empire on the English people. The author begins with Kipling, who did not only speak about the empire but also expressed it in many indirect ways, noting that Kipling was the most famous and prominent writer in English literature after 1918. The writer then proceeds to show how Lawrence responded and his attitude towards Kipling in his most famous work – attacking the empire and speaking about women and the private life of the English people.