Hemlock and After

First UK edition
(publ. Secker & Warburg)
Cover art by Ronald Searle

Hemlock and After is a 1952 novel by British writer Angus Wilson; it was his first published novel after a series of short stories. The novel offers a candid portrayal of gay life in post-World War II England.

Plot introduction[]

Bernard Sands, a prominent writer who has been given financial aid to start a writer's colony at Vardon Hall, faces a failing marriage, attempts to come to grips with his homosexuality and lives next door to a procuress for paedophiles.

Characters in Hemlock and After[]

Bernard Sands, the protagonist; a homosexual.
Ella, Bernard's wife.
Elizabeth, the Sandses' daughter.
James, the Sandses' son.
Charles, a friend of Bernard's; a senior civil servant.
Mrs Curry, the Sands's neighbour; a procuress for pedophiles.
Hubert Rose, an architect and a pedophile.

References to other works[]

Angus Wilson said in an interview that the ending of the novel was Dickensian.^[1]

Trivia[]

The novel was written in only four weeks.^[1]

References[]

^ ^a ^b Michael Millgate, "Angus Wilson, The Art of Fiction No. 20", The Paris Review, Autumn-Winter 1957, No. 17.

External links[]

Review from Time Magazine, 29 September 1952.

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[parisreview-1] Michael Millgate, "Angus Wilson, The Art of Fiction No. 20", The Paris Review, Autumn-Winter 1957, No. 17.

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