Christopher Isherwood, Lions and Shadows: An Education in the Twenties

Chris Baldick (Goldsmiths College, University of London)

Ed. by Chris Baldick, Goldsmiths College, University of London
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.08: English Writing and Culture of the early Twentieth Century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: Chris Baldick (Goldsmiths College, University of London), Peter Childs (Newman University), Louise McDonald (Newman University)

Dates

First circulation or publication Mar 1938

Places

England (Country of Origin; Publication/ performance)

Genres and Modes

Non-Fiction
- Autobiography (literary)
- Memoir

Resources

Lions and Shadows: An Education in the Twenties (1938) is a semi-fictionalised memoir by the English novelist Christopher Isherwood, in which he looks back with self-mocking irony upon his development between the ages of seventeen and twenty-four as an early stage in “the education of a novelist” (Isherwood 2013: xv). Isherwood warns us in his prefatory note that he has employed “a novelist’s licence” and portrayed his friends as “caricatures” under fictional names (xv), but his account is in broad outline biographically reliable, with a few qualifications. Significant background facts, principally Isherwood’s own homosexuality, are suppressed, while some important figures, …

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.

2107 words

Citation: Baldick, Chris. "Lions and Shadows: An Education in the Twenties". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 09 September 2020 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=3932, accessed 22 November 2024.]

Save this article