Alan Sillitoe

A laugh-out-loud adventure novel starring bestselling author Alan Sillitoe's most outrageous character: the happy bastard Michael Cullen. For most of his life, Michael Cullen was a twenty-two-carat no-good bastard, and he was quite proud of it. But after a series of outlandish criminal adventures revealed the true identity of his father, Michael made the mistake of introducing him to dear old ma. His parents wed, and Michael was a bastard no more....

A sweeping collection of poetry from one of Great Britain's most celebrated postwar writers.   Bestselling British novelist Alan Sillitoe delves into the profound and personal world of poetry in this collection of two hundred poems written between 1950 and 1990. Culled from seven previously published volumes of verse-and including twenty-one newly collected works-Sillitoe employs wit, humor, aggression, and longing to take readers into the depths...

The long-anticipated sequel to Alan Sillitoe's bestselling classic 1950s novel Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. Arthur and Brian Seaton are heading back to their hometown, Nottingham, some forty-odd years after the close of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. The brothers plan to surprise Brian's first love, Jenny Tuxford, on her seventieth birthday. Arthur, the notorious lothario, still has some of his old spark, but it has been hampered by domestic...

This fusion of novel and memoir from a bestselling British author chronicles the destructive effects of WWI on two working-class families in Nottingham.   An advocate for ordinary people, Alan Sillitoe combines family memoir with exhaustive research on military records, and fuses them with artistic speculation in this inventive and political historical novel. Central to the story are the author's grandfather, the blacksmith Ernest Burton, and his...

A portrait of individual and communal struggles to maintain authenticity and revolutionary fervor in 1960s England from award-winning, bestselling author Alan Sillitoe The final installment of the William Posters Trilogy revolves around the plights and foibles of the Handley family commune, which set up camp at the home of the wealthy Myra Bassingfield. There, painter Albert Handley is pursuing a whirlwind existence of art, sex, and chaotic domestic...

Never before published, Moggerhanger is the last novel written by iconic British writer Alan Sillitoe before his death in 2010. Originally intended as the third part in a trilogy, the first two of which, A Start in Life and Life Goes On, were published in England but not in America, Moggerhanger stands on its own as the last act in an amazing writer's career, a madcap, bawdy, boisterous, and above all comic novel written in a masterly, unflinching...

Here are three of Sillitoe's finest and funniest, chronicling the adventures of the "happy bastard" Michael Cullen. A Start in Life: The saga begins as Michael Cullen says goodbye to his home in Nottingham and hits the road for London. There he will make his fortune-or die trying. Life Goes On: The legend of Britain's most unlikely hero continues. After a series of outlandish criminal adventures, Cullen is a bastard no more. But he is still a rake...

This memoir and literary travelogue from one of the UK's most esteemed novelists offers rare insight into Cold War–era Russia.   In 1967, seeking an escape from his writing life, bestselling British novelist Alan Sillitoe embarks on a road trip from England to Russia via Harwich and Finland in his sturdy Peugeot. During his teens, the author had a cartographic fascination with the Battle of Stalingrad, and decades later he is still armed with intricate...

Over forty short stories spanning the career of England's most acclaimed postwar writer-including the iconic "The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner."   This comprehensive collection of short fiction from bestselling British author Alan Sillitoe mixes aggression with humor, and common working-class men with extraordinary twists of fate. It compiles works selected from the master storyteller's bestselling books, including The Loneliness of the...

Both The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner and Saturday Night and Sunday Morning were international bestsellers and made into acclaimed films. The prolific, award-winning author wrote over fifty books, including the three novels collected in this volume: a coming-of-age story about a young man who reinvents himself, a thriller featuring a blind veteran who thwarts a high-seas heroin heist-for love, and a seafaring search for Nazi treasure. The...