Blog Posts

  Much of Walter Greenwood’s other fiction refers back to his first novel, Love on the Dole (1933), and so it should be helpful to start with a review for his first novel too, though it is his most famous.  Love on the Dole established Greenwood’s reputation, was influential at the time and  later, and… Continue reading Walter Greenwood, Love on the Dole (1933)

Book review by Chris Hopkins. Keen as I am on Greenwood’s fiction, I think that  his highly novelistic memoir There Was a Time is one of his best pieces of writing, and perhaps the best in some ways. It was his last published prose work and was written after more than thirty years experience of being… Continue reading There Was a Time (1967)

Walter Greenwood is best remembered for Love on the Dole (1933), but he went on writing until the nineteen sixties and remained a popular author. I recently read his last novel and thought it reflected interestingly on his thoughts about later working-class life (depicted in leisure-mode on the dust-wrapper by Douglas Hall in a style… Continue reading Saturday Night at the Crown (1959) by Walter Greenwood

(This review is longer than usual - it seemed best to review the whole trilogy in one). Between 1952 and 1956 Greenwood completed his Trelooe Trilogy (published by Hutchinson – all references are to these first editions). The trilogy was set in Cornwall, where Greenwood had holidayed since meeting the artist Arthur Wragg in the… Continue reading The Trelooe Trilogy by Walter Greenwood [So Brief the Spring (1952), What Everybody Wants (1954) and Down by the Sea (1956)].

Walter Greenwood is, of course, famous as the Salford author of the best remembered thirties depression novel, Love on the Dole, a novel which has had considerable impact, then and since. In fact, he lived for the rest of his life as a professional author, writing new works and adaptations right up until the late… Continue reading Something in My Heart (1944) by Walter Greenwood