The Birmingham Group was a group of author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

s writing from the 1930s to the 1950s in and around Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. Members included John Hampson

John Hampson (novelist)

John Frederick Norman Hampson Simpson , who wrote as John Hampson, was an English novelist.Best known for his 1931 novel Saturday Night at the Greyhound - an unexpected critical and commercial success for the Hogarth Press - he was a member of the Birmingham Group of working class authors which...

, Walter Allen

Walter Allen

Walter Ernest Allen was an English literary critic and novelist. He is best known for his classic study The English Novel: a Short Critical History ....

, Peter Chamberlain, Leslie Halward

Leslie Halward

Leslie Halward was a British writer best known for his short stories and plays.His autobiography covering the time from his childhood to settling down to married life as a writer in the small village of Guarlford was published by Michael Joseph Ltd .After wartime service at RAF Defford he turned...

 and Walter Brierley

Walter Brierley

Walter Henry Brierley was a York architect whopractised in the city for 40 years. He is known as "the Yorkshire Lutyens".He is also credited with being an exponent of the "Wrenaissance" style - incorporating elements of Christopher Wren....

.

Part of Birmingham's vibrant literary and artistic scene in the 1930s that also included the poets W. H. Auden

W. H. Auden

Wystan Hugh Auden , who published as W. H. Auden, was an Anglo-American poet,The first definition of "Anglo-American" in the OED is: "Of, belonging to, or involving both England and America." See also the definition "English in origin or birth, American by settlement or citizenship" in See also...

, Louis MacNeice

Louis MacNeice

Frederick Louis MacNeice CBE was an Irish poet and playwright. He was part of the generation of "thirties poets" which included W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender and Cecil Day-Lewis; nicknamed "MacSpaunday" as a group — a name invented by Roy Campbell, in his Talking Bronco...

 and Henry Reed; novelist Henry Green

Henry Green

Henry Green was the nom de plume of Henry Vincent Yorke , an English author best remembered for the novel Loving, which was featured by Time in its list of the 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.- Biography :Green was born near Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, into an educated family...

, the sculptor Gordon Herickx

Gordon Herickx

Gordon Herickx was an English sculptor.Born in Birmingham, Herickx won a scholarship in 1914 to study under William Bloye at the Birmingham School of Art, completing his studies after World War I. He assisted Bloye on projects such as the 1933 carvings of the church of St...

 and the Birmingham Surrealists

Birmingham Surrealists

The Birmingham Surrealists were an informal grouping of artists and intellectuals associated with the Surrealist movement in art, based in Birmingham, England from the 1930s to the 1950s....

; the Birmingham Group shared little stylistic unity, but had a common interest in the realistic portrayal of working class

Working class

Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...

 scenes.

The group was christened by the American critic Edward J. O'Brien

Edward Joseph Harrington O'Brien

Edward Joseph Harrington O'Brien was a U.S. author, poet, editor and anthologist.He was noted for compiling an annual collection of short stories by U.S. authors, The Best American Short Stories.-External links:...

, who published several of their short stories in journals he edited and assumed they all knew each other. This became self-fulfilling, and for a while the group met weekly in a pub off Corporation Street

Corporation Street, Birmingham

Corporation Street is a main shopping street in Birmingham city centre, England.It runs from the law courts at its northern end to the centre of New Street at its southern.- Planning :...

.

Notable works

• John Hampson
  John Hampson (novelist)
  John Frederick Norman Hampson Simpson , who wrote as John Hampson, was an English novelist.Best known for his 1931 novel Saturday Night at the Greyhound - an unexpected critical and commercial success for the Hogarth Press - he was a member of the Birmingham Group of working class authors which...
  
   - Saturday Night at the Greyhound (1931)
• Walter Brierley
  Walter Brierley
  Walter Henry Brierley was a York architect whopractised in the city for 40 years. He is known as "the Yorkshire Lutyens".He is also credited with being an exponent of the "Wrenaissance" style - incorporating elements of Christopher Wren....
  
   - Means Test Man (1935)
• Leslie Halward
  Leslie Halward
  Leslie Halward was a British writer best known for his short stories and plays.His autobiography covering the time from his childhood to settling down to married life as a writer in the small village of Guarlford was published by Michael Joseph Ltd .After wartime service at RAF Defford he turned...
  
   - Let Me Tell You (1938)
• Walter Allen
  Walter Allen
  Walter Ernest Allen was an English literary critic and novelist. He is best known for his classic study The English Novel: a Short Critical History ....
  
  - All in a lifetime (1959)