Patrick Hamilton, Hangover Square

Susie Thomas (Independent Scholar - Europe)

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 1941

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

Patrick Hamilton’s most enduringly successful novel, Hangover Square (1941), is a timeless story of erotic obsession and addiction. The protagonist, George Harvey Bone, murders a young actress, Netta, and her secret bedfellow, Peter, before killing himself. The main plot is familiar in the twenty-first century from the many media accounts of lonely, half-crazed men who murder a wife or girlfriend and her lover before committing suicide themselves. But the novel’s original title also emphasises that the events take place in a specific time period (at the end of Auden’s “low dishonest decade”): Hangover Square; or the Man with Two Minds, a Story of Darkest Earl’s Court in the Year 1939. Moreover, the novel …

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4967 words

Citation: Thomas, Susie. "Hangover Square". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 31 August 2010 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=4838, accessed 26 November 2024.]

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