(1894–1984). British novelist, playwright, and essayist J.B. Priestley was noted for his varied output and his ability for shrewd characterization. Many of his plays, in particular, feature skillful depictions of ordinary people in domestic settings.
John Boynton Priestley was born on Sept. 13, 1894, in Bradford, Yorkshire, England. He served in the infantry in France during World War I and then studied English literature at Trinity College, Cambridge. After graduating in 1922 he worked as a journalist and first established a reputation with the essays collected in The English Comic Characters (1925) and The English Novel (1927). He achieved enormous popular success with The Good Companions (1929), a picaresque novel about a group of traveling performers. This was followed in 1930 by his most solidly crafted novel, Angel Pavement, a somber, realistic depiction of the lives of a group of office workers in London. Among his other more important novels are Bright Day (1946) and Lost Empires (1965).
Priestley was also a prolific dramatist, and he achieved early successes on the stage with such comedies as Laburnum Grove (1933) and When We Are Married (1938). He experimented with expressionistic psychological drama in Time and the Conways and I Have Been Here Before (both 1937) and Johnson over Jordan (1939). He also used time distortion as the basis for a mystery drama with moral overtones, An Inspector Calls (1946).
An adept radio speaker, Priestley had a wide audience for his patriotic broadcasts during World War II and for his subsequent Sunday evening programs. His large literary output of more than 120 books was complemented by his status as a commentator and literary spokesman for his countrymen, a role he sustained through his forceful and engaging public personality.
A revival of interest in and a reappraisal of Priestley’s work occurred in the 1970s. During that decade he produced, among other works, Found, Lost, Found, or The English Way of Life (1976). Priestley died on Aug. 14, 1984, in Alveston, near Stratford-upon-Avon.