United Kingdom

Lucky Jim

Name: Lucky Jim
ISBN: 9780140186307

by Kingsley Amis

Society & Class Literary Fiction 1954

Summary

Jim Dixon is a young history lecturer at a provincial English university, and he is spectacularly ill-suited to the world of academic pretension surrounding him. Desperate to keep his job, he must endure pompous professors, tedious social gatherings, an exhausting relationship, and the looming disaster of a lecture he can barely bring himself to prepare. When he falls for Christine, the girlfriend of his employer’s son, his already chaotic life becomes even more complicated. Sharp, irreverent, and gloriously funny, Lucky Jim skewers class snobbery, intellectual pretension, and the absurd rituals of professional life. A landmark of postwar British literature, it remains a delightfully rebellious portrait of an ordinary man trying not to lose his mind in a world of fools.

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About the author

Kingsley Amis

Kingsley Amis (1922–1995) was an influential English novelist, poet, and literary critic celebrated for his sharp wit and satirical portrayals of British society. Born in south London, he studied English at St John’s College, Oxford, where he formed a lifelong friendship with poet Philip Larkin. After serving in the British Army during the Second World War, Amis became a university lecturer, an experience that helped inspire his debut novel, Lucky Jim (1954). The book was an immediate success and established him as a leading voice in postwar British fiction. Over his career, he wrote more than twenty novels, exploring subjects ranging from social class and relationships to science fiction. His later novel The Old Devils won the Booker Prize in 1986, and he was knighted in 1990 for his contributions to literature.

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Published: 1954
Author: Kingsley Amis

Lucky Jim

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