Recharting the Thirties

Book excerpt: The aim of Recharting the Thirties is to revitalize the awareness of the reading public with regard to eighteen writers whose books have been largely ignored by publishers and scholars since their major works first appeared in the thirties. The selection is not based on a political agenda, but encompasses a wide and divergent range of philosophies; clearly, the contrasts between Empson and Upward, or between Powell and Slater, indicated the wide-ranging vision of the period. Women writers of the period have largely been marginalized, and the writings of Sackville-West and Burdekin, for example, not only present distinct feminine voices of the period, but also illuminate how much good literature has been forgotten.