All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go

Malcolm Bradbury's humorous look at Britain's transition to midcentury modernity

After spending a year teaching in an American university in the 1950s, Malcolm Bradbury returned to England only to realize that his native country had become nearly as mystifying to him as the American Midwest. As Britain marched toward a new decade, much of the country was changing inexorably, its agrarian past paved over by suburban developers, its quiet traditionalism replaced by beehive hairdos and shiny, glass-walled office buildings. And so, to confront this curious moment in British history, Bradbury turned to the sharpest tool in his arsenal: humor. In All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go, he writes of a country balancing precariously on the boundary of two worlds, with the wry wit and keenly observant eye that have made him one of the twentieth century's greatest satirists.

"[Bradbury] restores belief in the power of laughter." -Harpers & Queen

"He restores belief in the power of laughter." -Harpers & Queen

"A master not only of language and comedy but of feeling too." -The Sunday Times

"Malcolm Bradbury is a satirist of great assurance and accomplishment." -The Observer

Malcolm Bradbury (1932-2000) was a well-known novelist, critic, and academic, as well as founder of the creative writing department at the University of East Anglia. His seven novels include The History Man and Rates of Exchange, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Bradbury was knighted in 2000 for services to literature and died the same year.