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With a new afterword by David Collard.
Vic Brown is a young man on the way up, he’s got a job, money, ambitions and a new girlfriend, Ingrid Rothwell. His mate has even got a car – a Triumph TR3. He’s never had it so good. But Ingrid wants to get married, it’s the only respectable thing to do. She’s a step above Vic and he knows it. If they marry they could move in with Ingrid’s mother. He could move out from the house he grew up in. A real married couple. The world has begun to close in on Vic.
A Kind of Loving is a seminal novel in British working-class fiction. First published in 1960 it has been adapted for stage, television, radio and was made into an iconic film starring Alan Bates, June Ritchie and Thora Hird, directed by John Schlesinger. A Kind of Loving made Stan Barstow one of the key voices of the 1960s cultural renaissance in British life.
“UNSENTIMENTAL AND UNPATRONISING" THE GUARDIAN
‘...WARMTH, LIVELINESS, HONESTY, COMPASSION...’ SUNDAY TIMES
“OF THE RED-BLOODED WORKING-CLASS WRITERS WITH NORTHERN ROOTS – JOHN BRAINE, ALAN SILLITOE, DAVID STOREY, KEITH WATERHOUSE... STAN BARSTOW WAS ARGUABLY THE BEST... HIS AIM QUIETLY AMBITIOUS, AS HE SAW IT ‘SEEKING OUT THE UNIVERSAL IN THE PARTICULAR’.” TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
Stan Barstow was one of a generation of Northern writers including John Braine, Alan Sillitoe, David Storey and Keith Waterhouse who, fifty years ago, took the literary establishment by storm with their gritty accounts of working-class life. Their arrival marked a revolution in English literature the effects of which continue to this day.
Barstow was born in Horbury in the West Riding of Yorkshire in 1928. He was the only son of a miner. He left school at sixteen to work as a draughtsman in a local engineering firm.
His first published novel, A Kind of Loving, appeared in 1960 to great acclaim, was made into a ground-breaking film and later adapted for television, radio and theatre. For many years a fixture on school reading lists, it has never been out of print.
In a productive career Barstow wrote ten more novels (including two sequels to A Kind of Loving), three collections of short stories (published in one volume by Parthian as The Likes of Us) as well as award-winning scripts for television, radio and theatre. His work has been translated into many languages and is taught in schools and colleges all over the world. He was an honorary MA of the Open University, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Fellow of the Welsh Academy.
In 2000 he moved to Pontardawe in south Wales with his partner, the distinguished radio playwright Diana Griffiths. He died on 1st August 2011.
