Last Things

About the Author

Charles Percy Snow was born in Leicester,on 15 October 1905. He was educated from age eleven at Alderman Newton‘s School forboys where he excelled in most subjects, enjoying a reputation for anastounding memory and also developed a lifelong love of cricket. In 1923 he becamean external student in science of LondonUniversity, as the local college heattended in Leicester had no sciencedepartment. At the same time he read widely and gained practical experience byworking as a laboratory assistant at Newton‘sto gain the necessary practical experience needed.

Having achieved a first class degree, followed by a Masterof Science he won a studentship in 1928 which he used to research atthe famous Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge.There, he went on to become a Fellow of Christ‘s College, Cambridge, in 1930 where he also served as atutor, but his position became increasingly titular as he branched intoother areas of activity.In 1934, he began to publish scientificarticles in Nature, and then The Spectator beforebecoming editor of the journal Discovery in 1937. However, he wasalso writing fiction during this period, with his first novel Death Under Sail published in 1932, and in 1940 ‘Strangers andBrothers’ was published. This was the first of eleven novels in theseries and was later renamed ‘George Passant’ when ‘Strangersand Brothers’ was used to denote the series itself.

Discovery became a casualty of the war, closingin 1940. However, by this time Snow was already involved with theRoyal Society, who had organised a group to specifically use British scientifictalent operating under the auspices of the Ministry of Labour. He servedas the Ministry’s technical director from 1940 to 1944. After the war, hebecame a civil service commissioner responsible for recruiting scientists towork for the government.He also returned to writing,continuing the Strangers and Brothers series of novels.‘TheLight and the Dark’ was published in 1947, followed by ‘Time of Hope’ in 1949, and perhaps the most famous and popular of them all, ‘The Masters’,in 1951. He planned to finish the cycle within five years, but thefinal novel ‘Last Things’ wasn’t published until 1970.

He married the novelist Pamela Hansford Johnson in 1950and they had one son, Philip, in 1952.Snow was knighted in 1957 andbecame a life peer in 1964, taking the title Baron Snow of the CityLeicester.He also joined Harold Wilson’s first government asParliamentary Secretary to the new Minister ofTechnology.When the department ceased to exist in 1966 hebecame a vociferous back-bencher in the House of Lords.

After finishing the Strangers and Brothers series,Snow continued writing both fiction and non-fiction. His last work of fictionwas ‘A Coat of Vanish’, published in 1978. His non-fictionincluded a short life of Trollope published in 1974 and another, published posthumously in 1981, ‘The Physicists: a Generation that Changed the World’. He was also inundated withlecturing requests and offers of honorary doctorates. In 1961, hebecame Rector of St. Andrews University and for ten years also wroteinfluential weekly reviews for the Financial Times.

In these later years, Snow suffered from poor healthalthough he continued to travel and lecture. He also remained active asa writer and critic until hospitalized on 1 July 1980. He died laterthat day of a perforated ulcer.

‘Mr Snow has established himself, on his own chosen ground, in an eminent and conspicuous position among contemporary English novelists’ - New Statesman