Challenges cosy representations of the early post-war period, at the same time questioning a received alternative version of the decade as that of the "Angry Young Man", rebellious youth and rock and roll. The text re-examines the literary culture of the 1950s, reconsidering lost narratives, and reintroducing popular forms, particularly those addressed to women, into an account of the literature of the decade. It provides insight into the realignment of gender roles in the postwar period, which belies popular assumptions that women quietly left the workplace after the war, that there were no "Angry Young Women" in the 1950s. The book also offers a re-reading of popular genres for men, and of the canonical texts of the period.