Interwar Literary Cricket and Britain's Masculine Middlebrow Culture

George Orwell, Virginia Woolf, Dylan Thomas, Edith and Osbert Sitwell - these were just some of the interwar literary personalities who made caustic comments about the clique of writers who played cricket together in the twenties and thirties. Why did so many contemporaries comment specifically on these writers' cricket activities when passing judgement on their literary merits (or, more frequently, lack thereof)? Why did both sides see cricket as relevant to these men's status as writers? When we dig into the story of what Edith Sitwell called the 'literary cricketers,' we discover a major - and forgotten - dimension of interwar cultural history. We can also reconstruct a value system, in which literary cricket represented a set of manly middlebrow values - drawing praise from one set of cultural tastemakers and disdain from others. This enriches our understanding not just of the British interwar literary scene, but of the 1920s' and 1930s' cultural conflicts as a whole, as various parts of society grappled with their differing relationships towards art, gender and politics.

Ollie Randall studied Ancient and Modern History before completing a Master's degree in Creative Writing, both at the Queen’s College, Oxford. He then worked for four years as the freelance historical researcher for a former leader of the House of Lords, collaborating on two history books – William Simpson and the Crisis in Central Asia (2020) and Bobbety (forthcoming). He started his PhD project in 2022. His recent article, "Cricket, Literary Culture and In-Groups in Early Twentieth-Century Britain," is available now through Open Access via the Transactions of the Royal Historical Society. He also works as a tour manager on cultural tours, and he moonlights as a cartoonist at weddings.

All welcome- this seminar is free to attend, but advance registration is required.