Christopher Isherwood, Lions and Shadows: An Education in the Twenties

Chris Baldick (Goldsmiths College, University of London)

Ed. by Chris Baldick, Goldsmiths College, University of London
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.08: English Writing and Culture of the early Twentieth Century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: Chris Baldick (Goldsmiths College, University of London), Peter Childs (Birmingham Newman University), Louise McDonald (Birmingham Newman University), Andrew Radford (University of Glasgow)

Dates

First circulation or publication Mar 1938

Places

England (Country of Origin; Publication/ performance)

Genres and Modes

Non-Fiction
- Autobiography (literary)
- Memoir

Resources

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Lions and Shadows: An Education in the Twenties

(1938) is a semi-fictionalised memoir by the English novelist Christopher Isherwood, in which he looks back with self-mocking irony upon his development between the ages of seventeen and twenty-four as an early stage in “the education of a novelist” (Isherwood 2013: xv). Isherwood warns us in his prefatory note that he has employed “a novelist’s licence” and portrayed his friends as “caricatures” under fictional names (xv), but his account is in broad outline biographically reliable, with a few qualifications. Significant background facts, principally Isherwood’s own homosexuality, are suppressed, while some important figures, notably his mother Kathleen Bradley-Isherwood, are rendered almost invisible. As well as offering a…

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2107 words

Citation: Baldick, Chris. "Lions and Shadows: An Education in the Twenties". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 09 September 2020 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=3932, accessed 21 November 2024.]

Christopher Isherwood, Lions and Shadows: An Education in the Twenties

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