Edward Upward

Edward Falaise Upward, novelist and short story writer, born Romford, England, 9 September 1903.

Related Topics:
Romford - 9 September - 1903

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Upward was educated at Repton School, where he became friends with Christopher Isherwood. As an undergraduate at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge he won the Chancellor's Medal for English Verse in 1924. He was part of a group of writers including Isherwood (with whom he created the surreal world of the Mortmere stories), W. H. Auden and Stephen Spender.

Related Topics:
Repton School - Christopher Isherwood - Corpus Christi College, Cambridge - W. H. Auden - Stephen Spender

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After graduation Upward worked in various teaching jobs, and in 1932 took up a post at Alleyn's School, Dulwich where he was to remain for nearly thirty years. He joined the Communist Party in the same year and has remained committed to internationalism and socialism, although he and his wife Hilda left the Communist Party in 1948, believing its policies in Britain were no longer revolutionary.

Related Topics:
Alleyn's School - Communist Party

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Upward's first novel, Journey to the Border, was published by the Hogarth Press in 1938. It describes in poetic prose the rebellion of a private tutor against his employer and the menacing world of the 1930s, moving from a nightmarish state to one where he recognizes that he must join the workers' movement.

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The semi-autobiographical trilogy, The Spiral Ascent, was published in the 1960s and 70s after he had retired from teaching and moved to Sandown, Isle of Wight. It deals with a poet's life and his struggle to combine artistic creativity with political commitment, including in its historical sweep the fight against the British Union of Fascists in the 1930s, opposition to the leadership of the Communist Party in the 1940s and later on involvement in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

Related Topics:
Sandown - British Union of Fascists - Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

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In the last decades of the twentieth century Upward returned to writing short stories, which have been published along with earlier works by Enitharmon Press. In 2005, Upward was awarded the Benson Medal by the Royal Society of Literature.

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