Priestley, J(ohn) B(oynton)

Priestley, J(ohn) B(oynton) (1894-1984), British writer, born in Bradford. He served in the infantry during World War I, after which he attended the University of Cambridge. A newspaper essayist and critic, he wrote on a variety of subjects and often revealed his opposition to materialism and mechanization in society. The publication of The Good Companions (1929), a picaresque novel about a group of travelling performers, and Angel Pavement (1930), a sombre and realistic depiction of the lives of a group of office workers in London, established him as a successful popular novelist. Whereas his novels were traditional in form, his plays, beginning with Dangerous Corner (1932), were experimental, particularly in their treatment of time and of past and future events. Priestley's major plays include When We Are Married (1938), An Inspector Calls (1947), and Dragon's Mouth (1952); on the latter, he collaborated with his wife, the English archaeologist and writer Jacquetta Hawkes. Later books include the autobiographical Margin Released (1962), Man and Time (1964), Essays of Five Decades (1968), The Edwardians (1970), and The English (1973). Priestley was director of the influential journal New Statesman and Nation and, after declining a knighthood and a peerage, accepted the Order of Merit from Elizabeth II in 1977.