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John Boland (author)
Bertram John Boland (12 February 1913 – 9 November 1976) was a British novelist and science fiction author. Boland was born in Birmingham, but later lived in East Sussex, on the edge of Ashdown Forest with his wife, Philippa.Biography and bibliography taken from the dust jacket of The Gentlemen at Large. Published by Forest House Books. His most well known book was ''The League of Gentlemen (novel), The League of Gentlemen'' (1958) which was released as a The League of Gentlemen (film), film. However, characters' names and the ending were changed.The book ends with the main character shooting himself. In the film, he gives himself up to the police. He wrote two sequels: * ''The Gentlemen Reform (1961)'' * ''The Gentlemen at Large (1962)'' They continued with the characterisations developed in the film. His first novel "White August" (1955) was a science fiction weather control disaster story. His second, "No Refuge" (1956) begins as a bank robbery crime story but them cha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West Midlands metropolitan county, and approximately 4.3 million in the wider metropolitan area. It is the largest UK metropolitan area outside of London. Birmingham is known as the second city of the United Kingdom. Located in the West Midlands region of England, approximately from London, Birmingham is considered to be the social, cultural, financial and commercial centre of the Midlands. Distinctively, Birmingham only has small rivers flowing through it, mainly the River Tame and its tributaries River Rea and River Cole – one of the closest main rivers is the Severn, approximately west of the city centre. Historically a market town in Warwickshire in the medieval period, Birmingham grew during the 18th century during the Midla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
East Sussex
East Sussex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England on the English Channel coast. It is bordered by Kent to the north and east, West Sussex to the west, and Surrey to the north-west. The largest settlement in East Sussex is the city of Brighton and Hove. History East Sussex is part of the historic county of Sussex, which has its roots in the ancient kingdom of the South Saxons, who established themselves there in the 5th century AD, after the departure of the Romans. Archaeological remains are plentiful, especially in the upland areas. The area's position on the coast has also meant that there were many invaders, including the Romans and later the Normans. Earlier industries have included fishing, iron-making, and the wool trade, all of which have declined, or been lost completely. Governance Sussex was historically sub-divided into six rapes. From the 12th century the three eastern rapes together and the three western rapes together had separ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ashdown Forest
Ashdown Forest is an ancient area of open heathland occupying the highest sandy ridge-top of the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It is situated some south of London in the county of East Sussex, England. Rising to an elevation of above sea level, its heights provide expansive vistas across the heavily wooded hills of the Weald to the chalk escarpments of the North Downs and South Downs on the horizon. Ashdown Forest's origins lie as a medieval hunting forest created soon after the Norman conquest of England. By 1283 the forest was fenced in by a ''pale'' enclosing an area of some . Thirty-four ''gates'' and ''hatches'' in the pale, still remembered in place names such as Chuck Hatch and Chelwood Gate, allowed local people to enter to graze their livestock, collect firewood, and cut heather and bracken for animal bedding. The forest continued to be used by the monarchy and nobility for hunting into Tudor times, including notably Henry VIII, who had a hunting lodg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The League Of Gentlemen (novel)
''The League of Gentlemen'' (1958) is a pulp-fiction novel by English author John Boland. The novel was made into the film ''The League of Gentlemen ''The League of Gentlemen'' is a surreal British comedy horror sitcom that premiered on BBC Two in 1999. The programme is set in Royston Vasey, a fictional town in northern England, originally based on Alston, Cumbria, and follows the lives o ...'', which was released in 1960 and became the year's most successful British film. Plot summary Lt. Col. Hyde is forced into early retirement after 25 years of service as an officer in the British Army. To get his revenge, Hyde recruits seven other former officers for a special project. They are all in bad standing with the Army—having been forced out for quite serious indiscretions—and are equally dissatisfied and have skeletons in their closets. The job Hyde is planning turns out to be a bank robbery. Hyde has chosen the officers for their respective specialties, qualities that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The League Of Gentlemen (film)
''The League of Gentlemen'' is a 1960 British heist action comedy film directed by Basil Dearden and starring Jack Hawkins, Nigel Patrick, Roger Livesey, and Richard Attenborough. It is based on the 1958 novel ''The League of Gentlemen'' by John Boland and adapted by Bryan Forbes, who also starred in the film. Plot A manhole opens at night in an empty street and out climbs Lieutenant-Colonel Norman Hyde (Jack Hawkins) in a dinner suit. He gets into a Rolls-Royce and drives home. There, he prepares seven envelopes, each containing an American crime paperback called ''The Golden Fleece'', halves of ten £5-notes and an unsigned invitation from “Co-operative Removals Limited” to lunch at the Cafe Royal. The envelopes are sent to former army officers, each in desperate or humiliating circumstances. When they all turn up looking for the other halves of the £5-notes which are handed out, Hyde asks their opinion of the novel which is about a robbery. They show little enthusiasm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Galaxy Science Fiction
''Galaxy Science Fiction'' was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published in Boston from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by a French-Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break into the American market. World Editions hired as editor H. L. Gold, who rapidly made ''Galaxy'' the leading science fiction magazine of its time, focusing on stories about social issues rather than technology. Gold published many notable stories during his tenure, including Ray Bradbury's "The Fireman", later expanded as ''Fahrenheit 451''; Robert A. Heinlein's ''The Puppet Masters''; and Alfred Bester's ''The Demolished Man''. In 1952, the magazine was acquired by Robert Guinn, its printer. By the late 1950s, Frederik Pohl was helping Gold with most aspects of the magazine's production. When Gold's health worsened, Pohl took over as editor, starting officially at the end of 1961, though he had been doing the majority of the production work for some time. Under Pohl ''Gala ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Worlds (magazine)
''New Worlds'' was a British science fiction magazine that began in 1936 as a fanzine called ''Novae Terrae''. John Carnell, who became ''Novae Terrae''s editor in 1939, renamed it ''New Worlds'' that year. He was instrumental in turning it into a professional publication in 1946 and was the first editor of the new incarnation. It became the leading UK science fiction magazine; the period to 1960 has been described by science fiction historian Mike Ashley as the magazine's "Golden Age". Carnell joined the British Army in 1940 following the outbreak of the Second World War and returned to civilian life in 1946. He negotiated a publishing agreement for the magazine with Pendulum Publications, but only three issues of ''New Worlds'' were produced before Pendulum's bankruptcy in late 1947. A group of science fiction fans formed a company called Nova Publications to revive the magazine; the first issue under their management appeared in mid-1949. ''New Worlds'' continued to appear on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swanwick Writers' Summer School
The Swanwick Writers' Summer School is an annual writers' conference held at The Hayes Conference Centre, near Swanwick, Derbyshire. Founded in 1948, and first held in the summer of 1949, it is believed to be the oldest independent writers' school in the world. Established as a charity and run on a not for profit basis, it was inspired by the London Writers Circle. Early celebrities that featured at the School included, Vera Brittain, L.P. Hartley, Hammond Innes and Arthur C. Clarke The first chairman was Cecil Hunt, a chairman of the London Writers' Circle. Early delegates included the booker prize nominee, Barbara Pym, one of whose novels, ''No Fond Return of Love'', is inspired, in part, by Swanwick itself. Associated with the school for over fifteen years as member, host and lecturer was Booker Prize Winner Paul Scott. He refers to the role Swanwick plays in creative writing in his published essays. Over the years Swanwick has played an important role in the social dev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Advent (publisher)
Advent:Publishers is an American publishing house. It was founded by Earl Kemp and other members of the University of Chicago Science Fiction Club, including Sidney Coleman, in 1955, to publish criticism, history, and bibliography of the science fiction field, beginning with Damon Knight's ''In Search of Wonder''. With books like ''In Search of Wonder'' and James Blish's ''The Issue at Hand'', Advent became the genre's first scholarly publisher. Authors Authors in the field who have either written or edited Advent books, or been the subject of an Advent book, include: * Cy Chauvin * Reginald Bretnor *Theodore Cogswell *Robert A. Heinlein *Cyril Kornbluth *Alfred Bester *Robert Bloch *L. Sprague de Camp * Howard DeVore *E. E. Smith * Ron Ellik *Lloyd Arthur Eshbach *Damon Knight *Alexei Panshin *Donald H. Tuck *Harry Warner Jr Footnotes on First Beginnings: Advent & the UofCSF Club… “After exchanging a few letters with Mari Wolf (who was conducting “Fandora’s Bo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1913 Births
Events January * January 5 – First Balkan War: Battle of Lemnos – Greek admiral Pavlos Kountouriotis forces the Turkish fleet to retreat to its base within the Dardanelles, from which it will not venture for the rest of the war. * January 13 – Edward Carson founds the (first) Ulster Volunteer Force, by unifying several existing loyalist militias to resist home rule for Ireland. * January 23 – 1913 Ottoman coup d'état: Ismail Enver comes to power. * January – Stalin (whose first article using this name is published this month) travels to Vienna to carry out research. Until he leaves on February 16 the city is home simultaneously to him, Hitler, Trotsky and Tito alongside Berg, Freud and Jung and Ludwig and Paul Wittgenstein. February * February 1 – New York City's Grand Central Terminal, having been rebuilt, reopens as the world's largest railroad station. * February 3 – The 16th Amendment to the United S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1976 Deaths
Events January * January 3 – The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights enters into force. * January 5 – The Pol Pot regime proclaims a new constitution for Democratic Kampuchea. * January 11 – The 1976 Philadelphia Flyers–Red Army game results in a 4–1 victory for the National Hockey League's Philadelphia Flyers over HC CSKA Moscow of the Soviet Union. * January 16 – The trial against jailed members of the Red Army Faction (the West German extreme-left militant Baader–Meinhof Group) begins in Stuttgart. * January 18 ** Full diplomatic relations are established between Bangladesh and Pakistan 5 years after the Bangladesh Liberation War. ** The Scottish Labour Party is formed as a breakaway from the UK-wide party. ** Super Bowl X in American football: The Pittsburgh Steelers defeat the Dallas Cowboys, 21–17, in Miami. * January 21 – First commercial Concorde flight, from London to Bahrain. * January 27 ** The United States v ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Science Fiction Writers
English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national identity, an identity and common culture ** English language in England, a variant of the English language spoken in England * English languages (other) * English studies, the study of English language and literature * ''English'', an Amish term for non-Amish, regardless of ethnicity Individuals * English (surname), a list of notable people with the surname ''English'' * People with the given name ** English McConnell (1882–1928), Irish footballer ** English Fisher (1928–2011), American boxing coach ** English Gardner (b. 1992), American track and field sprinter Places United States * English, Indiana, a town * English, Kentucky, an unincorporated community * English, Brazoria County, Texas, an unincorporated community * Engli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
