Bill Hopkins (novelist)
Bill Hopkins | |
|---|---|
| Born | Bill Hopkins 5 May 1928 |
| Died | 6 May 2011 (aged 83) |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Nationality | British |
| Period | 20th century |
| Literary movement | Angry young men |
Bill Hopkins (5 May 1928 – 6 May 2011) was a Welsh novelist and journalist who has been grouped with the angry young men.
Early life
His parents, Edward Lewis "Ted" Hopkins and Violet Brodrick, were stage comedians.[2][3]
Work
Hopkins's one published novel is a philosophical thriller, The Divine and the Decay (London, MacGibbon and Kee, 1957). The novel "had an antagonistic reception."[4] Graham Hough of Encounter called it "an adolescent power-fantasy, extremely shoddily written" and expressed surprise that "even the naivest masturbations of the most unhappy young man should be able to take this openly Fascist form."[5] In response, the publisher voluntarily recalled and pulped copies of the work.[6] The novel was reprinted in 1984 under the title The Leap!, with an introduction by Colin Wilson and a new preface by Hopkins.
Hopkins was also the author of "Ways Without Precedent", an essay included in Declaration, edited by Tom Maschler (London, MacGibbon & Kee, 1957), an anthology of non-fiction pieces by writers identified as Angry Young Men and Women, and "Aiming for a Likeness", his contribution to Colin Wilson: A Celebration (1988), in which he recalls how he arranged a meeting between Wilson and the portrait and fresco painter Pietro Annigoni.[7]
Hopkins has been grouped with the authors Colin Wilson and Stuart Holroyd, with whom he shared a house in London in the late 1950s.[8]
Later life
In the mid-1980s, Hopkins edited and published The Monitor (originally titled The Arab Monitor), employing artist Cliff G. Hanley to design the covers. This was a news magazine focused on the Middle East.
He was survived by his German-born wife, Carla Hopkins, who owns the antiques store they ran together for many years, and one of his sisters, Mary Angela Thomas, living in San Francisco, California, plus a nephew and niece.
Portrayals
Hopkins, and his brief political career as a leader of the Spartacan movement, is lampooned in Bernard Kops's debut novel Awake for Mourning (1968).[9][8]
Works
Novel
- The Divine and the Decay. 1st ed. London: MacGibbon and Kee, 1957). 2nd ed. London: Deverell and Birdsey, 1984. 3rd ed. Dunce, 2024.
Essays
- "Ways without a Precedent," in Declaration, ed. Tom Maschler (London: MacGibbon and Kee, 1957).[10] Reprinted in Counter-Currents (19 March 2015).[11]
- "Aiming for a Likeness" in Colin Wilson, a Celebration: Essays and Recollections, ed. Colin Stanley. London: Cecil Woolf, 1988.
Poetry
- "Selected Poems" ["Xanadu," "Claudian Landscape," "Heroic Head," "Soft Perceptions," Salute to Henry Moore" and "The Prince of War"], Synthesis (n.d.).[12] Reprinted in Counter-Currents (7 June 2011).[13]
References
- ^ "Bill Hopkins and the Angry Young Men". 6 July 2006. Retrieved 23 July 2023.
- ^ Jonathan Bowden, "Remembering Bill Hopkins, 1928–2011," Counter-Currents (7 June 2011).
- ^ "Ted Hopkins: The Famous Welsh Humorist," Welsh Curtain Calls (n.d.).
- ^ Kenneth Allsop, The Angry Decade: A Survey of the Cultural Revolt of the Nineteen-Fifties (London: Peter Owen, 1958), p. 22.
- ^ Hough, Graham (February 1958). "New Novels". Encounter. p. 86.
- ^ Humphrey Carpenter, The Angry Young Men: A Literary Comedy of the 1950s (London: Penguin, 2002), p. 172.
- ^ "Aiming for a Likeness" in Colin Wilson, a Celebration: Essays and Recollections (1988), ed. Colin Stanley. London: Cecil Woolf, pp. 47–49.
- ^ a b Holroyd, Stuart (1975). Contraries: A Personal Progression. London: The Bodley Head Ltd.
- ^ Stewart Home, "TEDDY BOY RIOTS & RIGHT-WING ANGRY YOUNG MEN: 'Awake for Mourning' by Bernard Kops," stewarthomesociety.org.
- ^ Full text: archive.org.
- ^ Full text: counter-currents.com.
- ^ Full text: archive.org.
- ^ Full text: counter-currents.com.