Kingsley Amis (1922 -1995)

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Novelist, poet, critic, and teacher, father of writer Martin Amis, generally grouped among the "angry young men" in the 1950s, though he denied the affiliation. A man who considered boredom the worst offense in fiction and nearly the worst offense in life

Amis' ascent from the obscurity of lower-middle-class London was largely self-willed. He become a man of outrageous wit and genius, and gained reputation as a "supreme clubman, boozer and blimp." A radical in his young adulthood, Amis was later know for his conservative critique of contemporary life and manners.

Born in London as the only son of a business clerk, he was educated at the City of London School and St. John's College, Oxford. In 1947 Amis published his first collection of poems, Bright November. During this time Amis was a member of the literary group The Movement, whose members included Robert Conquest, Elisabeth Jennings and Philip Larkin. As a novelist Amis made his debut with Lucky Jim (1954), which was very successful. The comic main character also appeared in novels That Uncertain feeling (1956) and I Like it Here (1958), a xenophobic novel set in Portugal.