A towering figure in the literary landscape for five decades, and one of the most astute and influential critics of the twentieth century, Cyril Connolly was infamous for his straight-talking, continuously engaging and utterly individual style.

The Modern Movement is the first of two volumes of Cyril Connolly's Selected Works, edited by his son, Matthew. Featuring the best of his critical essays, it charts the whole of his career, spanning his early thoughts on film, through an analysis of the impact of war on literature, to his writings on the Modernists, including Auden, Camus, Dylan Thomas and Beckett. A sparkling collection, The Modern Movement exemplifies the penetrating mind, the questioning spirit and the provocative views of a man who lived a life in letters and held a place at the very heart of the literary world that his work described.

`An extraordinary stylist, and one who has aged remarkably well. You connect instantly, and with a bark of laughter' Daily Telegraph

`Crammed with his moaning and yearning, with a restless staring into the world and a gloomy relish at nearly all he sees' New Statesman

`Connolly may again prove to be salutary reading, now, in the bleak, mad days of this new century' Spectator

`Connolly's humour is mordant, self-lacerating - and occasionally brave' Independent