Editing Kingsley Amis (section)

==Literary work==
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Amis is widely known as a comic novelist of life in mid- to late-20th-century Britain, but his literary work covered many genres: poetry, essays, criticism, short stories, food and drink, anthologies, and several novels in genres such as science fiction and mystery. His career initially developed inversely to that of his close friend [[Philip Larkin]]. Before becoming known as a poet, Larkin had published two novels; Amis originally sought to be a poet and turned to novels only after publishing several volumes of verse. He continued throughout his career to write poetry in a straightforward, accessible style that often masks a nuance of thought.

Amis's first novel, ''Lucky Jim'' (1954), satirises the highbrow academic set of an unnamed university through the eyes of a struggling young lecturer of history. It was widely perceived as part of the [[Angry Young Men]] movement of the 1950s, in reacting against the stultification of conventional British life, although Amis never encouraged this interpretation. Amis's other 1950s and early 1960s novels likewise depict contemporary situations drawn from his experience.

''[[That Uncertain Feeling (novel)|That Uncertain Feeling]]'' (1955) features a young provincial librarian (perhaps with an eye to Larkin working as a librarian in Hull) and his temptation to adultery. ''I Like It Here'' (1958) takes a contemptuous view of "abroad" after Amis's own travels on the Continent with a young family. ''[[Take a Girl Like You]]'' (1960) steps away from the immediately autobiographical but remains grounded in the concerns of sex and love in ordinary modern life, tracing a young schoolmaster's courtship and ultimate seduction of the heroine.

With ''[[The Anti-Death League]]'' (1966), Amis begins to show some of the experimentation—in content, if not style—that marked much of his work in the 1960s and 1970s. His departure from the strict realism of his early comedic novels is not as abrupt as it might first appear. He had been avidly reading science fiction since he was a boy and developed that interest in the Christian Gauss Lectures of 1958 while visiting [[Princeton University]]. These were published that year as ''New Maps of Hell: A Survey of Science Fiction'', giving a serious yet light-handed treatment of what the genre had to say about man and society.

Amis was especially keen on the [[dystopian]] works of [[Frederik Pohl]] and [[C. M. Kornbluth]] and, in ''New Maps of Hell'', coined the term "comic inferno" to describe a type of humorous dystopia exemplified by the work of [[Robert Sheckley]]. He further displayed his devotion to the genre in editing, with the [[Sovietologist]] [[Robert Conquest]], the science-fiction anthology series ''Spectrum'' I–V, which drew heavily upon 1950s numbers of the magazine ''[[Analog Science Fiction and Fact|Astounding Science Fiction]]''.

Though not explicitly science fiction, ''The Anti-Death League'' takes liberties with reality not found in Amis's earlier novels. It introduces a speculative bent that continued to develop in others of his genre novels, such as ''[[The Green Man (Kingsley Amis novel)|The Green Man]]'' (1969) (mystery/horror) and ''[[The Alteration]]'' (1976) ([[Alternate history|alternative history]]). Much of this speculation concerned the improbability of the existence of any benevolent deity involved in human affairs.

In ''The Anti-Death League'', ''The Green Man'', ''The Alteration'' and elsewhere, including poems such as "The Huge Artifice: an interim assessment" and "New Approach Needed", Amis showed frustration with a God who could lace the world with cruelty and injustice, and championed the preservation of ordinary human happiness—in family, in friendships, in physical pleasure—against the demands of any cosmological scheme. Amis's religious views appear in a response reported in his ''Memoirs''. To the Russian poet [[Yevgeny Yevtushenko]]'s question, "You atheist?" Amis replied, "It's more that I hate Him."

During this time, Amis had not turned completely away from the comedic realism of ''Lucky Jim'' and ''Take a Girl Like You''. ''I Want It Now'' (1968) and ''Girl, 20'' (1971) both depict the "swinging" atmosphere of late-1960s London, in which Amis certainly participated, though neither book is strictly autobiographical. ''Girl, 20'', for instance, is set in the world of classical (and pop) music, in which Amis had no part. The book's noticeable command of music terminology and opinion shows Amis's amateur devotion to music and almost journalistic capacity to explore a subject that interested him. That intelligence is similarly displayed in the ecclesiastical matters in ''The Alteration''; Amis was neither a Roman Catholic nor a devotee of any church.

Throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, Amis regularly produced essays and criticism, principally for periodical publication. Some were collected in 1968 into ''What Became of Jane Austen? and Other Essays'', in which Amis's wit and literary and social opinions were displayed on books such as [[Colin Wilson]]'s ''The Outsider'' (panned), [[Iris Murdoch]]'s début novel ''Under the Net'' (praised), and [[William Empson]]'s ''Milton's God'' (inclined to agreement). Amis's opinions on books and people tended to appear, and often were, conservative, and yet, as the title essay of the collection shows, he was not merely reverent of "the classics" and of traditional morals but more disposed to exercise his own rather independent judgement in all things.

Amis became associated with [[Ian Fleming]]'s [[James Bond]] novels, which he admired, in the late 1960s, when he began composing critical works connected with Bond, either under a pseudonym or uncredited. In 1965, he wrote the popular ''[[The James Bond Dossier|James Bond Dossier]]'' under his own name. The same year, he wrote ''[[The Book of Bond]], or, Every Man His Own 007'', a tongue-in-cheek how-to manual about being a sophisticated spy, under the pseudonym "Lt Col. William ('Bill') Tanner", Tanner being M's chief of staff in many of Fleming's novels. In 1968, Amis wrote ''[[Colonel Sun]]'', which was published under the pseudonym "[[Robert Markham]]".

Amis's literary style and tone changed significantly after 1970, with the possible exception of ''[[The Old Devils]]'', a [[Booker Prize]] winner. Several critics found him old-fashioned and misogynistic. His ''[[Stanley and the Women (novel)|Stanley and the Women]]'', an exploration of social sanity, could be said to instance these traits. Others said that his output lacked his earlier work's humanity, wit and compassion.

This period also saw Amis as an anthologist, displaying a wide knowledge of all kinds of English poetry. ''The New Oxford Book of Light Verse'' (1978), which he edited, was a revision of an original volume by [[W. H. Auden]]. Amis took it in a markedly new direction: Auden had interpreted light verse to include "low" verse of working-class or lower-class origin, regardless of subject matter, while Amis defined light verse as essentially light in tone, though not necessarily simple in composition. ''The Amis Anthology'' (1988), a personal selection of his favourite poems, grew out of his work for a London newspaper, in which he selected a poem a day and gave it a brief introduction.<ref>Fussell, ''The Anti-Egotist''.</ref>

Amis was shortlisted for the [[Booker Prize]] three times, for ''Ending Up'' (1974) and ''Jake's Thing'' (1978), and finally, as a prizewinner for ''[[The Old Devils]]'' in 1986.<ref>[http://www.themanbookerprize.com/prize/authors/27 The Man Booker Prizes] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120224062830/http://www.themanbookerprize.com/prize/authors/27 |title=Kingsley Amis|date=24 February 2012}}</ref>

In 2008, ''[[The Times]]'' ranked Amis 13th on its list of the 50 greatest [[British literature|British writers]] since 1945.<ref>[http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article3127837.ece The 50 greatest British writers since 1945] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110425050801/http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article3127837.ece |date=25 April 2011 }}. ''[[The Times]]'', 5 January 2008, accessed 8 February 2010.</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=List |url=http://www.listsofbests.com/list/93594-the-times-50-greatest-british-writers-since-1945 |access-date=25 November 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111205220521/http://www.listsofbests.com/list/93594-the-times-50-greatest-british-writers-since-1945 |archive-date=5 December 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref>