John Osborne

Andrew Wyllie (University of the West of England)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: English Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary Britain , 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Gina Lyle (University of York), Graham MacPhee (University of Manchester), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Jenni Ramone (The Nottingham Trent University)

Dates

Born 12 Dec 1929
Died 24 Dec 1994
Activity 1950-1992

Places

Born in England
Active in England

Activities

Primary

Playwright / Dramatist

Other

Autobiographer
Essayist
Political writer

Resources

Osborne's Works

Save to Bookshelf

John Osborne wrote 25 stage plays and collaborations, five screenplays, 11 works for television, two volumes of autobiography and sundry short pieces of social comment and criticism. He established a critical reputation for having single-handedly changed the course of post-war British drama. This reputation rests almost entirely on the reception accorded to

Look Back in Anger

(1956). His other most significant plays are

The Entertainer

(1957),

Inadmissible Evidence

(1964) and

A Patriot for Me

(1965), with

Luther

(1961) and

The Hotel in Amsterdam

(1968) also critically regarded as important works. The two published volumes of his autobiography –

A Better Class of Person: An Autobiography 1929–1956

and

Almost a Gentleman,

which covers the years 1955–1966 – are the most interesting…

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

2097 words

Citation: Wyllie, Andrew. "John Osborne". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 17 July 2001 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3436, accessed 27 November 2024.]