The cocktail-fuelled Spend-O-Rama of the 1920s was over. The Great Depression was in full sting. Poverty was rife. Capitalism seemed dead. The British Empire was declining, and the Nazis held an Olympics. Sandwiched between the worst economic crash the world had ever seen and the joint-worst war the world had ever seen, it was a difficult decade in many ways. But of course, writers still wrote.
Some sought to tackle the troubles of the time head-on, writing about race and poverty, sexuality or institutional control. Others, meanwhile, worked on ways to forget, creating new worlds through which to escape, worlds of mystery, wonder and hope.
