''Eustace and Hilda'' is a 1947 novel by the British writer

L.P. Hartley Leslie Poles Hartley (30 December 1895 – 13 December 1972) was a British novelist and short story writer. Although his first fiction was published in 1924, his career was slow to take off. His best-known novels are the '' Eustace and Hilda'' ...

. It was the third in a trilogy of novels, following ''The Shrimp and the Anemone'' (1944) and ''The Sixth Heaven'' (1946), which are collectively known as the Eustace and Hilda Trilogy. The novel was widely acclaimed.

John Betjeman Sir John Betjeman (; 28 August 190619 May 1984) was an English poet, writer, and broadcaster. He was Poet Laureate from 1972 until his death. He was a founding member of The Victorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architecture, ...

described it as a

social novel The social novel, also known as the social problem (or social protest) novel, is a "work of fiction in which a prevailing social problem, such as gender, race, or class prejudice, is dramatized through its effect on the characters of a novel". More ...

in the same class as those of the nineteenth-century writer

George Meredith George Meredith (12 February 1828 – 18 May 1909) was an English novelist and poet of the Victorian era. At first his focus was poetry, influenced by John Keats among others, but he gradually established a reputation as a novelist. ''The Ord ...

.Wright p.146 It was awarded the

James Tait Black Memorial Prize The James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are literary prizes awarded for literature written in the English language. They, along with the Hawthornden Prize, are Britain's oldest literary awards. Based at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, Unit ...

for fiction.

References

Bibliography

* Wright, Adrian. ''Foreign Country: The Life of L.P. Hartley''. I. B. Tauris, 2001. 1947 British novels Novels by L. P. Hartley Novels set in England G. P. Putnam's Sons books NYRB Classics {{1940s-novel-stub