Part of the Britain in Pictures series published between 1941 and 1948 in an effort to boost morale and instill pride in a national identity during the war and early post-war years. Over 130 volumes were planned but only 126 actually appeared. The list of authors was an impressive who's who of the literary, political and arts communities of the time. In this volume of the series, Elizabeth Bowen, herself a distinguished novelist, provides a survey of the principal English novelists and their works from John Lyly to Virginia Woolf.