Editing Kingsley Amis (section)

==Life and career==
Kingsley Amis was born on 16 April 1922 in [[Clapham]], south London, the only child of William Robert Amis (1889–1963), a clerk—"quite an important one, fluent in Spanish and responsible for exporting mustard to South America"—for the mustard manufacturer [[Colman's]] in the [[City of London]],<ref>Amis & Son: Two Literary Generations, Neil Powell, Pan Macmillan, 2012, p. 3</ref> and his wife Rosa Annie (née Lucas).<ref>''Kingsley Amis: Memoirs'', Vintage Classics, 2004, p. 14.</ref><ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/portal/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/portal/2007/06/09/nosplit/ftfamdet109.xml |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080501035951/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/portal/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/portal/2007/06/09/nosplit/ftfamdet109.xml |url-status=dead |archive-date=1 May 2008 |work=[[The Daily Telegraph]] |title=Family detective |first=Nick |last=Barratt |date=9 June 2007 |access-date=7 May 2010}}.</ref> The Amis grandparents were wealthy. William Amis's father, the glass merchant Joseph James Amis, owned a mansion called Barchester at [[Purley, London|Purley]], then part of [[Surrey]]. Amis considered J. J. Amis—always called "Pater" or "Dadda"—"a jokey, excitable, silly little man", whom he "disliked and was repelled by".<ref name="Memoirs 2004, pp. 1–5">''Memoirs'' (2004), pp. 1–5.</ref>

His wife Julia "was a large, dreadful, hairy-faced creature ... whom [Amis] loathed and feared". His mother's parents lived at [[Camberwell]]. Her father George was an enthusiastic collector of books and Baptist chapel organist who was employed at a Brixton gentleman's outfitters as a tailor's assistant<ref name="Amis 2012, p. 5">Amis & Son: Two Literary Generations, Neil Powell, Pan Macmillan, 2012, p. 5</ref> and was "the only grandparent [Amis] cared for". Amis hoped to inherit much of his grandfather's library, but his grandmother Jemima—whom Amis already disliked for her habit of mocking her husband when he read his favourite passages to Amis, making "faces and gestures at him while his head was lowered to the page"<ref name="Amis 2012, p. 5"/>—permitted him to take only five volumes, on condition he wrote "from his grandfather's collection" on the flyleaf of each.<ref name="Memoirs 2004, pp. 1–5"/>

Amis was raised at [[Norbury]]—in his later estimation "not really a place. It's an expression on a map ... really I should say I came from [[Norbury station]]."<ref>''Bookmark'', BBC TV, "Kingsley Amis: The Memoirs".</ref> Having been educated first at St Hilda's, an "undistinguished, long-vanished local school ... an independent girls' school of the kind which also took small boys, before they became pubescent and dangerous", he then moved to nearby Norbury College.<ref>Amis & Son: Two Literary Generations, Neil Powell, Pan Macmillan, 2012, pp. 4, 9–10</ref>

In 1940, the Amises moved to [[Berkhamsted]], [[Hertfordshire]], and Amis (like his father before him) won a scholarship to the [[City of London School]].<ref>''Memoirs'' (2004), pp. xvi and 14.</ref> In April 1941, after his first year, he was admitted on a scholarship to [[St John's College, Oxford]], where he read English. There he met [[Philip Larkin]], with whom he formed the most important friendship of his life.<ref name="Leader 2006, p. 108">Leader (2006), p. 108,</ref>

In June 1941, Amis joined the [[Communist Party of Great Britain]].<ref name="Leader 2006, p. 108"/> He broke with communism in 1956, in view of [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] leader [[Nikita Khrushchev]]'s denunciation of [[Joseph Stalin]] in his speech "[[On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences]]".<ref>Martin Amis (2002).</ref> In July 1942, he was called up for national service and served in the [[Royal Corps of Signals]]. He returned to Oxford in October 1945 to complete his degree.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Sillery |first1=A. |last2=Sillery |first2=V. |title=St. John's College Biographical Register 1919-1975 |volume=3 |publisher=Oxford: St. John’s College |year=1975 |page=170}}</ref> Although he worked hard and earned a first in English in 1947, he had decided by then to give much of his time to writing.

In 1946 he met [[Hilary Kilmarnock|Hilary Bardwell]]. They married in 1948 after she became pregnant with their first child, Philip. Amis initially arranged for her to have a back-street [[abortion]], but changed his mind, fearing for her safety. He was a [[lecturer]] in English at the [[University College of Swansea]] from 1949 to 1961.<ref>Leader, 2006, p. 452.</ref> Two other children followed: [[Martin Amis|Martin]]<ref>"Sir Kingsley Amis Dies; British Novelist and Poet", ''[[The Washington Post]]'', 23 October 1995; Leader, 2006, p. 1.</ref> in August 1949 and Sally in January 1954.

Days after Sally's birth, Amis's first novel, ''[[Lucky Jim]]'', was published to great acclaim. Critics felt it had caught the flavour of Britain in the 1950s and ushered in a new style of fiction.<ref>Malcolm Bradbury, 1989, p. 205; Ritchie, 1988, p. 64.</ref> By 1972, its impressive sales in Britain had been matched by 1.25 million paperback copies sold in the United States. It was translated into 20 languages, including Polish, [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]], Korean, and Serbo-Croat.<ref>Jacobs, 1995, p. 162.</ref> The novel won the [[Somerset Maugham Award]] for fiction and Amis became one of the writers known as the [[Angry Young Men]]. ''Lucky Jim'' was among the first British [[campus novel]]s,{{citation needed|date=August 2021}} setting a precedent for later generations of writers such as [[Malcolm Bradbury]], [[David Lodge (author)|David Lodge]], [[Tom Sharpe]] and [[Howard Jacobson]]. As a poet, Amis was associated with [[The Movement (literature)|The Movement]].

In 1958–1959 Amis made the first of two visits to the United States, as a visiting fellow in creative writing at [[Princeton University]] and a visiting lecturer at other northeastern universities. On returning to Britain, he fell into a rut, and he began looking for another post. After 13 years at Swansea, Amis became a fellow of [[Peterhouse, Cambridge]], in 1961, but regretted the move within a year, finding Cambridge an academic and social disappointment. He resigned in 1963, intent on moving to Majorca, although he actually moved no further than London.<ref>''Memoirs'', "Cambridge".</ref><ref>Bradford, Ch. 10.</ref>

In 1963, Hilary discovered that Amis was having an affair with the novelist [[Elizabeth Jane Howard]]. Hilary and Amis separated in August and he went to live with Howard, divorcing Hilary and marrying Howard in 1965. In 1968 he moved with Howard to [[Lemmons]], a house in Barnet, north London. She and Amis divorced in 1983.

In his last years, Amis shared a house with Hilary and her third husband, [[Alastair Boyd, 7th Baron Kilmarnock]]. Martin's memoir ''[[Experience (book)|Experience]]'' contains much about the life, charm and decline of his father.

Amis was [[Knight Bachelor|knighted]] in 1990. In August 1995 he fell, following a suspected stroke. After apparently recovering, he worsened and died on 22 October 1995 at [[St Pancras Hospital]], London.<ref>"Sir Kingsley Amis Dies; British Novelist and Poet", ''Washington Post'', 23 October 1995.</ref><ref>Bradford, Ch 23.</ref> He was cremated and his ashes laid to rest at [[Golders Green Crematorium]].