Raymond Henry Williams (31 August 1921 - 26 January 1988) was a Welsh academic, novelist and critic. His writings on politics, culture, the mass media and literature reflected his Marxist outlook. He was an influential figure within the New Left and in wider culture. Some 750,000 copies of his books have sold in UK editions alone (Politics and Letters, 1979) and there are many translations of his various works. is the 243rd day of the year (244th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1921 (MCMXXI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar). ... is the 26th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1988 (MCMLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Friday (link displays 1988 Gregorian calendar). ... This article is about the country. ... A novel is an extended work of written, narrative, prose fiction, usually in story form; the writer of a novel is a novelist. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Marxism is the political practice and social theory based on the works of Karl Marx, a 19th century philosopher, economist, journalist, and revolutionary, along with Friedrich Engels. ... The New Left is a term used in different countries to describe left-wing movements that occurred in the 1960s and 1970s. ... Politics and Letters is critic Raymond Williamss own account of his life and work. ...

Life

Born in Llanfihangel Crucorney, near Abergavenny, Wales, the son of a railway worker in a village where all of the railwaymen voted Labour while the local small farmers mostly voted Liberal. It was not a Welsh-speaking area - he described it as 'Anglicised in the 1840s' (Politics and Letters, 1979). There was however a strong Welsh identity. "There is the joke that someone says his family came over with the Normans and we reply: 'Are you liking it here?'". , Abergavenny (Welsh: ), meaning Mouth of the River Gavenny, is a town in the principal area of Sir Fynwy, Cymru / Monmouthshire, Wales. ... This article is about the country. ... The Labour Party is a centre-left or social democratic political party in Britain (see British politics), and one of the United Kingdoms three main political parties. ... The Liberal Party was one of the two major British political parties from the early 19th century until the 1920s, and a third party of varying strength and importance up to 1988, when it merged with the Social Democratic Party to form a new party which would become known as... Politics and Letters is critic Raymond Williamss own account of his life and work. ...

He attended King Henry VIII Grammar School in Abergavenny. His teenage years were overshadowed by the rise of Nazism and the threat of war. He was 14 when the Spanish Civil War broke out, and was very conscious of what was happening through his membership of the local Left Book Club. He also mentions the Italian invasion of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) and Edgar Snow's Red Star Over China, originally published in Britain by the Left Book Club (Politics and Letters). It has been suggested that this school-related article be merged to the appropriate locality article. ... , Abergavenny (Welsh: ), meaning Mouth of the River Gavenny, is a town in the principal area of Sir Fynwy, Cymru / Monmouthshire, Wales. ... Nazism in history Nazi ideology Nazism and race Outside Germany Related subjects Lists Politics Portal         Nazism or National Socialism (German: Nationalsozialismus), refers primarily to the ideology and practices of the Nazi Party (National Socialist German Workers Party, German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP) under Adolf Hitler. ... Not to be confused with the Spanish Civil War of 1820-1823. ... The Left Book Club, founded in 1936, was a key left-wing institution of the late 1930s and 1940s in the United Kingdom. ... This article needs cleanup. ... Edgar Snow (left) with Zhou Enlai and his wife Deng Yingchao approx. ... Mao Zedong in 1931. ...

At this time he was supporter of the League of Nations, attending a League-organised youth conference in Geneva. On the way back, his group visited Paris and he visited the Soviet pavilion at the International Exhibition. There he bought a copy of The Communist Manifesto and read Marx for the first time. The League of Nations was an international organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference in 1919–1920. ... A Worlds Fair is any of various large expositions held since the mid-19th century. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... Marx is a common German surname. ...

Second World War

He went to Trinity College, Cambridge, but his education was interrupted by war service. He joined the British Communist Party while at Cambridge. Along with Eric Hobsbawm, he was given the task of writing a Communist Party pamphlet about the Russo-Finnish War. He says in (Politics and Letters) that they "were given the job as people who could write quickly, from historical materials supplied for us. You were often in there writing about topics you did not know very much about, as a professional with words." No copies of this work seem to have survived. At the time, the British government was keen to support Finland in its war against the Soviet Union, while still being at war with Nazi Germany. Full name The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity Motto Virtus vera nobilitas Virtue is true Nobility Named after The Holy Trinity Previous names King’s Hall and Michaelhouse (until merged in 1546) Established 1546 Sister College(s) Christ Church Master The Lord Rees of Ludlow Location Trinity Street... The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist party in the United Kingdom. ... Eric John Earnest Hobsbawm CH (born June 8, 1917 in Alexandria, Egypt) is a British Marxist historian and author. ... The Winter War (also known as the Russo-Finnish War) broke out when the Soviet Union attacked Finland on November 30, 1939, three months after the start of World War II. As a consequence, the Soviet Union was expelled from the League of Nations on December 14th. ... Politics and Letters is critic Raymond Williamss own account of his life and work. ... Nazi Germany, or the Third Reich, commonly refers to Germany in the years 1933–1945, when it was under the firm control of the totalitarian and fascist ideology of the Nazi Party, with the Führer Adolf Hitler as dictator. ...

In the winter of 1940, he decided that he should join the British Army. This was against the Party line at the time, though in fact he stayed at Cambridge to take his exams in June 1941, the same month that Germany invaded Russia. As he describes it, his membership lapsed, without him ever formally resigning. Year 1940 (MCMXL) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full 1940 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The British Army is the land armed forces branch of the British Armed Forces. ...

At the time he joined the army, it was normal for undergraduates to be directed into the signal corps. He received some initial training, but was then switched to artillery and anti-tank weapons. He was seen as 'officer material' and served as an officer in the Anti-Tank Regiment of the Guards Armoured Division, 1941-1945, being sent into the early fighting in Normandy after D Day. In Politics and Letters he says "I don't think the intricate chaos of that Normandy fighting has ever been recorded". He commanded a unit of four tanks and mentions losing touch with two of them during fighting against SS Panzer forces; he never discovered what happened to them, because there was then a withdrawal. The Guards Armoured Division was a World War II British Army formation. ... For other uses, see 1941 (disambiguation). ... Year 1945 (MCMXLV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar). ... Battle plans for the Normandy Invasion, the most famous D-Day. ...

He was part of the fighting from Normandy in 1944 through to Germany in 1945, where he was involved with the liberation of one of the smaller concentration camps, which was afterwards used to detain SS officers. He was also shocked to find that Hamburg had suffered saturation bombing, not just of military targets and docks as they had been told. This article is about the city in Germany. ...

Adult education

He received his M.A. from Trinity in 1946 and then served as a tutor in adult education at the University of Oxford for several years.^[1] He made his reputation with Culture and Society, published in 1958 and an immediate success. This was followed in 1961 by The Long Revolution. Williams's writings were taken up by the New Left and given a very wide readership. He was also well-known as a regular book reviewer for the Manchester Guardian newspaper. His years in adult education were an important experience and Williams was always something of an outsider at Cambridge University. Asked to contribute to a book called My Cambridge he began his essay by saying that "It was never my Cambridge. That was clear from the start." Year 1946 (MCMXLVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full 1946 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Libraries are useful resources for adult learners. ... The University of Oxford (informally Oxford University), located in the city of Oxford, England, is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. ... Culture and Society, by Raymond Williams, 1958. ... The long revolution of the title is a cultural revolution, which Raymond Williams sees as having unfolded alongside the democratic revolution and the industrial revolution. ... The New Left is a term used in different countries to describe left-wing movements that occurred in the 1960s and 1970s. ... The Guardian was also the name of a U.S. television series. ...

Cambridge University

On the strength of his books, Williams was invited to return to Cambridge in 1961, eventually becoming Professor of Drama there (1974 - 1983). He was Visiting Professor of Political Science at Stanford University in 1973, an experience that he used to good effect in his still useful book Television: Technology and Cultural Form (1974). A committed socialist, he was greatly interested in the relationships between language, literature, and society and published many books, essays and articles on these and other issues. Among the most important is The City and the Country (1973) in which chapters about literature alternate with chapters of social history. His tightly written Marxism and Literature (1977) is mainly for specialists, but it also sets out his own approach to cultural studies, which he called cultural materialism. This book was in part a response to "structuralism" in literary studies and pressure on Williams to make a more theoretical statement of his own position against criticisms that it was a humanist Marxism, based on unexamined assumptions about lived experience. He makes considerable use of the ideas of Antonio Gramsci, though the book is uniquely Williams and written in his own characteristic voice. For a more accessible version see his book Culture (1981/1982), which also further develops some key arguments, especially about aesthetics. Year 1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1974 (MCMLXXIV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar) of the 1974 Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1983 (MCMLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays the 1983 Gregorian calendar). ... Stanford redirects here. ... For the song by James Blunt, see 1973 (song). ... Socialism is a social and economic system (or the political philosophy advocating such a system) in which the economic means of production are owned and controlled collectively by the people. ... For other uses, see Literature (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Society (disambiguation). ... This article needs additional references or sources for verification. ... Structuralism as a term refers to various theories across the humanities, social sciences and economics many of which share the assumption that structural relationships between concepts vary between different cultures/languages and that these relationships can be usefully exposed and explored. ... Antonio Gramsci (IPA: ) (January 22, 1891 – April 27, 1937) was an Italian writer, politician and political theorist. ... The Parthenons facade showing an interpretation of golden rectangles in its proportions. ...

Debate

Williams's position about other writers on culture and society may surprise some readers. For example, in his short book about George Orwell he is sharply critical of a figure with whom many people assume he has much in common. Williams also wrote in a critical way about Marshall McLuhan's writings on technology and society. This is the background to the chapter in Television: Technology and Cultural Form (1974) called "The Technology and the Society." His book on Modern Tragedy may be read as a response The Death of Tragedy, by the conservative literary critic George Steiner. Later, Williams was interested in the work of Pierre Bourdieu but agreed that his writing is unnecessarily pessimistic about the possibilities for social change. Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 [1] [2] – 21 January 1950), better known by the pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist. ... “McLuhan” redirects here. ... (Francis) George Steiner, a prominent literary critic, was born in Paris, France, on April 23, 1929. ... Pierre Bourdieu (August 1, 1930 â€“ January 23, 2002) was an acclaimed French sociologist whose work employed methods drawn from a wide range of disciplines: from philosophy and literary theory to sociology and anthropology. ...

Last years

He retired from Cambridge in 1983 and spent his last years in Saffron Walden. While there, he wrote Loyalties, a novel about a fictional group of upper-class radicals attracted to 1930s Communism. He was also working on People of the Black Mountains, an experimental historical novel about people who lived or might have lived around the Black Mountains, the part of Wales he came from. It is told thorough a series of flashbacks featuring an ordinary man in modern times, who is looking for his father who has not returned from a hill-walk. He imagines the region as it was and might have been. The story begins in the Old Stone Age and was intended to come right up to modern times, always focusing on ordinary people. Saffron Walden is a small market town in the Uttlesford district of Essex, England. ... People of the Black Mountains, a work in two volumes by Raymond Williams, begins in the Old Stone Age and extends through to Medieval times. ... The Black Mountains are a group of hills in south-eastern Wales, and a small part of Herefordshire, England. ... The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (Greek παλαιός paleos=old and λίθος lithos=stone or the Old Stone Age) was the first period in the development of human technology of the Stone Age. ...

Raymond Williams had completed it to mediaeval times when he died in 1988. It was prepared for publication by his wife Joy Williams. It was published in two volumes, along with a Postscript that gives a brief description of what the remaining work would have been. Almost all of the stories were completed in typescript, generally revised many times by the author. Only The Comet was left incomplete and needed some small additions to make a continuous narrative.^[2]

In the 1980s, Williams made important links with debates in feminist, peace and ecology movements and extended his position beyond what might be recognized as Marxism. He concluded that because there were many different societies in the world there would be not one, but many socialisms.

Publications

Novels

• Border Country, London, Chatto and Windus, 1960. reissued Hogarth Press, 1987.
• Second Generation, London, Chatto and Windus, 1964. reissued Hogarth Press, 1987.
• The Volunteers, London, Eyre-Methuen, 1978. Paperback edition, London, Hogarth Press, 1985
• The Fight for Manod, London, Chatto and Windus, 1979. reissued Hogarth Press, 1987.
• Loyalties, London, Chatto and Windus, 1985
• People of the Black Mountains, Volume 1: The Beginning, London, Chatto and Windus, 1989
• People of the Black Mountains, Volume 2: The Eggs of the Eagle, London, Chatto and Windus, 1990

Border Country is a novel by Raymond Williams. ... The Hogarth Press was founded in 1917 by Leonard and Virginia Woolf. ... Second Generation is a 1964 novel by Raymond Williams, set in the 1960s. ... Chatto and Windus has been, since 1987, an imprint of Random House, the publishers. ... The Fight for Manod, a 1979 novel by Raymond Williams. ... Loyalties, a novel by Raymond Williams, first published 1985. ... People of the Black Mountains, a work in two volumes by Raymond Williams, begins in the Old Stone Age and extends through to Medieval times. ... People of the Black Mountains, a work in two volumes by Raymond Williams, begins in the Old Stone Age and extends through to Medieval times. ...

Literary and cultural studies

• Reading and Criticism, Man and Society Series, London, Frederick Muller, 1950.
• Drama from Ibsen to Eliot, London, Chatto and Windus, 1952. Revised edition, London, Chatto and Windus, 1968.
• Raymond Williams and Michael Orrom, Preface to Film, London, Film Drama, 1954.
• Culture and Society, London, Chatto and Windus, 1958. New edition with a new introduction, New York, Columbia University Press, 1963. Translated into Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and German.
• The Long Revolution, London, Chatto and Windus, 1961. Reissued with additional footnotes, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1965.
• Communications, Britain in the Sixties Series, Harmondsworth, Penguin Special, Baltimore, Penguin, 1962: revised edition, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1966. Third edition, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1976. Translated into Danish and Spanish.
• Modern Tragedy, London, Chatto and Windus, 1966. New edition, without play Koba and with new Afterword, London, Verso, 1979.
• S. Hall, R. Williams and E. P. Thompson (eds.) New Left May Day Manifesto. London, May Day Manifesto Committee, 1967. R. Williams (ed.) May Day Manifesto, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1968, 2nd edition.
• Drama in Performance (book by Raymond Williams), revised edition. New Thinkers Library, C. A. Watts, 1954
• Drama from Ibsen to Brecht, London, Chatto and Windus, 1968. Reprinted, London, Hogarth Press, 1987.
• The Pelican Book of English Prose, Volume 2: From 1780 to the Present Day, R. Williams, (ed.) Harmondsworth and Baltimore, Penguin, 1969
• The English Novel From Dickens to Lawrence, London Chatto and Windus, 1970. Reprinted, London, Hogarth Press, 1985
• Orwell, Fontana Modern Masters Series, Glasgow, Collins, 1971. 2nd edition. Glasgow, Collins, Flamingo Paperback Editions, Glasgow, Collins, 1984.
• The Country and the City, London, Chatto and Windus, 1973. Reprinted, London, Hogarth Press, 1985. Translated into Spanish.
• J. Williams and R. Williams (eds) D H Lawrence on Education, Harmondsworth, Penguin Education, 1973.
• R. Williams (ed.) George Orwell: A Collection of Critical Essays, Twentieth Century Views, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall, 1974.
• Television: Technology and Cultural form, Technosphere Series, London, Collins, 1974. (ISBN 978-0415314565) Translated into Chinese (Taiwan's complex characters), Italian, Korean and Swedish.
• Keywords, Fontana Communications Series, London, Collins, 1976. New edition, New York, Oxford University Press, 1984.
• M. Axton and R. Williams (eds) English Drama: Forms and Developments, Essays in Honour of Muriel Clara Bradbrook, with an introduction by R. Williams, Cambridge and New York, Cambridge University Press, 1977.
• Marxism and Literature, Marxist Introductions Series, London and New York, Oxford University Press, 1977. Translated into Spanish, Italian and Korean.
• Politics and Letters: Interviews with New Left Review, London, New Left Books, 1979, Verso paperback edition, 1981.
• Problems in Materialism and Culture: Selected Essays, London, Verso, 1980. New York, Schocken, 1981.
• Culture, Fontana New Sociology Series, Glasgow, Collins, 1981. US edition, The Sociology of Culture, New York, Schocken, 1982.
• R. and E. Williams (eds) Contact: Human Communication and its History, London and New York, Thames and Hudson, 1981.
• Cobbett, Past Masters series, Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press, 1983.
• Towards 2000, London, Chatto and Windus, 1983. US edition, The Sociology of Culture, with a Preface to the American edition, New York, Pantheon, 1984.
• Writing in Society , London, Verso, 1983. US edition. New York, Verso, 1984
• M. Williams and R. Williams (eds) John Clare: Selected Poetry and Prose, Methuen English Texts, London and New York, Methuen, 1986.
• Raymond Williams on Television: Selected Writings, Preface by R. Williams, A. O'Connor, (ed.) London, Routledge, 1989.
• Resources of Hope, R. Gable (ed.) London and New York, Verso, 1989.
• What I Came to Say, London, Hutchinson-Radius, 1989.
• The Politics of Modernism, T. Pinkney (ed.) London and New York, Verso, 1989.

Culture and Society, by Raymond Williams, 1958. ... The long revolution of the title is a cultural revolution, which Raymond Williams sees as having unfolded alongside the democratic revolution and the industrial revolution. ... Stuart Hall (born 1932 in Kingston, Jamaica) is a cultural theorist from the United Kingdom. ... Edward Palmer Thompson (February 3, 1924 - August 28, 1993), was an English historian, socialist and peace campaigner. ... The Country and the City is a book by Raymond Williams which was published in 1973. ...

Short stories

• Red Earth, Cambridge Front, no. 2 (1941)
• Sack Labourer, in English Short Story 1, W. Wyatt (ed.) London, Collins, 1941
• Sugar, in R. Williams, M. Orrom, M.J. Craig (eds) Outlook: a Selection of Cambridge Writings, Cambridge, 1941, pp.7-14.
• This Time, in New Writing and Daylight, no. 2, 1942-3, J. Lehmann (ed.) London, Collins, 1943, pp. 158-64.
• A Fine Room to be Ill In, in English Story 8, W. Wyatt (ed.) London, 1948.

Drama

• Koba (1966) in Modern Tragedy, London, Chatto and Windus
• A Letter from the Country, BBC Television, April 1966, Stand, 12(1971), pp17-34
• Public Enquiry, BBC Television, 15 March 1967, Stand, 9 (1967), pp15-53

Koba drama was written in 1958-59 by Raymond Williams. ... is the 74th day of the year (75th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1967 (MCMLXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the 1967 Gregorian calendar. ...

Introductions

• A seven-page introduction to All Things Betray Thee, a novel by Gwyn Thomas.

All Things Betray Thee, by Gwyn Thomas, is a novel of early industrialism in South Wales. ... Gwyn Thomas (July 6, 1913 – April 13, 1981) was a Welsh writer who has been called the true voice of the English-speaking valleys. // Gwyn Thomas was born in the Rhondda valley, the son of a coalminer. ...

Biographical and critical studies

Book length treatments

• Cevasco, Maria Elisa. Para ler Raymond Williams (Portuguese of To Read Raymond Williams)São Paulo, Paz e Terra, 2001.
• Eagleton, Terry, editor. Raymond Williams: Critical Perspectives. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1989.
• Ethridge, J.E.T. Raymond Williams: Making Connections. New York: Routledge, 1994.
• Gorak, Jan. The Alien Mind of Raymond Williams. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1988.
• Inglis, Fred. Raymond Williams. London and New York: Routledge, 1995.
• Jones, Paul. "Raymond Williams's Sociology of Culture: A Critical Reconstruction". London: Palgrave, 2004.
• Lusted, David, editor. Raymond Williams: Film, TV, Culture, London: British Film Institute, 1989.
• Milligan, Don. Raymond Williams: Hope and Defeat in the Struggle for Socialism, Studies in Anti-Capitalism, 2007.
• Milner, Andrew Re-Imagining Cultural Studies: The Promise of Cultural Materialism, London: Sage, 2002.
• O'Connor, Alan. Raymond Williams: Writing, Culture, Politics. Oxford and New York: Blackwell, 1989.
• O'Connor, Alan. Raymond Williams. Critical Media Studies. Rowman and Littlefield, 2005.
• Pinkney, Tony, editor. Raymond Williams. Bridgen, Mid Glamorgan, England: Sern Books, 1991.
• Politics and Letters (London, New Left Books, 1979) gives the author's own account of his life and work
• Stevenson, Nick. Culture, Ideology, and Socialism: Raymond Williams and E.P. Thompson. Aldershot, England: Avebury, 1995.
• Ward, J. P. Raymond Williams in the Writers of Wales series. University of Wales Press, 1981.
• Williams, Daniel, editor. Who Speaks for Wales?: Nation, Culture, Identity, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2003.
• Woodhams, Stephen. History in the Making: Raymond Williams, Edward Thompson and Radical Intellectuals 1936-1956, Merlin Press 2001.

Terry Eagleton (born in Salford, Lancashire (now Greater Manchester), England, on February 22, 1943) is a British literary critic and philosopher. ... Fred Inglis is Emeritus Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Sheffield in the UK. Previously Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Warwick, he has been a member of the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and Fellow-in-Residence at the... The University of Wales (Prifysgol Cymru in Welsh) is a federal university founded in 1893. ...

Treatments of his books

• [Dempsey, Lorcan] A neglected Welsh-English dystopia. The Volunteers: Worldcat.org review. 8 April 2006.
• Dai Smith discusses Raymond Williams' Border Country. BBC Wales Arts and Entertainment
• Dai Smith. Foreword to Border Country, Cardigan: Parthian, 2006.

References

1. ^ Lodge, David, Twentieth Century Literary Criticism, Longman (London, 1972)
2. ^ Postscript, plus myself as an eye-witness to the process - Gwydion M. Williams, --~~~~

External links

• The Raymond Williams Society
• Museum of Broadcast Communications article about Raymond Williams
• Remembering Raymond Williams by John Eldridge
• Maurice Cowling on Raymond Williams
• Selections from Keywords
• Studies in Anti-Capitalism.
• The Raymond Williams Centre
• Raymond Williams page at The Literary Encyclopedia
• Raymond Williams Worldcat Identity

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