"A great fund of comic invention." - Times Literary Supplement "Written with great spirit . . . very funny . . . fresh, unhackneyed and excellently observed." - Listener " A] bustling kaleidoscope of a book, by an author fertile in expedient, keenly observant and occasionally probing the heart of darkness." - Sunday Times Charles Lumley feels that he has been born in captivity - the captivity of his smugly conventional bourgeois upbringing. Now he has just graduated from university, only to make the discouraging discovery that his education has rendered him unfit for any kind of useful employment. Wondering what to do with the rest of his life and longing to escape, a chance remark overheard in a pub sets him off on a picaresque and hilarious tour of 1950s Britain. He undergoes a string of comic misadventures as he works as a window cleaner, a drug trafficker, a hospital orderly, and a chauffeur, all while trying to find his place in the world and win the love of the beautiful Veronica Roderick. John Wain (1925-1994) was one of the great English men of letters of the 20th century, a prolific novelist, poet, biographer, and critic whose many accolades included the Somerset Maugham Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and the Whitbread Award. Hurry on Down (1953), his first novel, ushered in a new kind of English novel and paved the way for many later classics, including Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim (1954) and John Braine's Room at the Top (1957). This 60th anniversary edition includes an introduction by Nick Bentley and marks the novel's first republication in the United States in more than half a century.

An English philologist in North Wales, intending to become fluent in the language, becomes involved with the locals whose exploits have a lasting and surprising effect on his life.

Louis Wain was one of the most popular commercial illustrators in the history of England. Born in 1860, his portrayals of cats captured the imagination of the citizens, and his work helped to elevate the profile and popularity of cats to unprecedented heights. H.G. Wells once remarked. "He made the cat his own. He invented a cat style, a cat society, a whole cat world. Cats who do not live and look like Louis Wain cats are ashamed of themselves." His illustrations were so popular that throughout the beginning of the twentieth century, most homes had at least one of his famous cat annuals and many nurseries had Wain posters hanging on their walls. In the time before the First World War, Louis Wain's cats, dressed as humans, portrayed that stylish Edwardian world having fun: at restaurants and tea parties, going to the Race and the Seaside, celebrating at Christmas and Birthdays, and disporting themselves with exuberant games of tennis, bowls, cricket and football. This book tells Wain's story with full color high resolution reproductions of some of his drawings.

At the age of 35 a British writer examines his life and makes a self-assessment.