Stella Gibbons, ex-centricity and the suburb

Hammill, Faye; Bluemel, Kristin, ed. (2009) Stella Gibbons, ex-centricity and the suburb. In: Intermodernism. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, pp. 75-92. ISBN 0748635092

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Abstract

In The Intellectuals and the Masses (1992), John Carey writes: 'The rejection by intellectuals of the clerks and the suburbs meant that writers intent on finding an eccentric voice could do so by colonizing this abandoned territory. The two writers who did so were John Betjeman and Stevie Smith' (66). Whilst Carey's insight forms a useful starting point for this discussion, his restriction of the suburban literary terrain to just two writers must be disputed.