Priestley, J(ohn) B(oynton) 1894-1984
English novelist, playwright and critic

Born in Bradford, he was educated there and at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He had already made a reputation by critical writings such as The English Comic Characters (1925) and books on George Meredith (1926) and Thomas Love Peacock (1927) in 'The English Men of Letters' series when the geniality of his novel The Good Companions (1929) gained him a wide popularity. It was followed by other novels, though not all of equal merit, including Angel Pavement (1930), Let the People Sing (1939), Jenny Villiers (1947) and The Magicians (1954). His reputation as a dramatist was established by Dangerous Corner (1932), Time and the Conways (1937), and other plays on space-time themes, as well as popular comedies such as Laburnum Grove (1933), and his psychological mystery, An Inspector Calls (1947). Best known as a writer of novels, Priestley was also master of the essay form. He was an astute, original and controversial commentator on contemporary society - Journey Down the Rainbow (1955), written with his archaeologist wife, Jacquetta Hawkes, was a jovial indictment of US life. In a serious vein, his collected essays, Thoughts in the Wilderness (1957), deal with both present and future social problems.

Bibliography: J Braine, J. B. Priestley (1978)