(1968) is an absorbing and sometimes harrowing novel in which Sir Lewis Eliot, now retired from the corridors of power and living a privileged life as a public man and a writer, enters a time of troubles which culminates in the trial in his native town of two young women, Cora Ross and Kitty Pateman, for the murder of an eight-year-old boy, Eric Mawby. C. P. Snow based the trial largely on the 1966 Moors Murders trial, which Snow’s wife, the novelist Pamela Hansford Johnson (1913-80), had reported for the

and subsequently written about in a controversial book,

(1967).

The Sleep of Reason is the tenth and penultimate novel in Snow’s “Strangers and Brothers” series. Its time span runs from April 1963 to June 1964. The title of the

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Citation: Tredell, Nicolas. "The Sleep of Reason". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 10 May 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=19410, accessed 27 November 2024.]