Explore the ways in which key 20th-century authors experimented with new forms and themes to capture the fast-changing world around them.
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Themes
Explore key themes in 20th-century literature
Art, music and popular culture
From riots at the ballet to punk rock fanzines, discover the music, art and popular culture that shook the world in the 20th century.
Read moreCapturing and creating the modern
Modernist writers broke new ground by experimenting with new forms and themes. From everyday life, perception and time to the kaleidoscopic and fractured nature of modern life, discover the ways in which these writers created and captured the modern.
Read moreGender and sexuality
From Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own and E M Forster’s Maurice to Sylvia Plath’s journals and Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, discover how literature explored, questioned and exploded traditional ideas of gender roles and sexuality.
Read moreFantasy and fairy tale
From subversive fairy tales to gothic nightmares, explore how 20th-century writers used fantasy to analyse and question the real world around them.
Read moreCollection items
Browse over 300 treasures from the British Library collection and beyond
Notebook drafts of Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway (Volume I)
Date: 27 June 1923–after 28 January 1924
Notebook used by Angela Carter for Wise Children
Date: undated
Typescript second draft of The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Date: undated
George Orwell's notes for Nineteen Eighty-Four
Date: 1939/40–46/47
Manuscript of T S Eliot's The Waste Land, with Ezra Pound's annotations
Date: before October 1922
People
Explore iconic authors of the 20th century
Explore key 20th century literary works
Explore key 20th century literary works
Birthday Letters
Created by: Ted HughesBirthday Letters, a collection of 88 poems by the British poet Ted Hughes, was published to public and critical ...
The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories
Created by: Angela CarterThe Bloody Chamber and Other Stories is a 1979 collection of short fiction by the British writer Angela Carter. Each ...
The Buddha of Suburbia
Created by: Hanif KureishiThe Buddha of Suburbia (1990) is a bestselling novel by the British writer Hanif Kureishi. Its main protagonist is a ...
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