‘The prizes which glittered most attractively to the lucky post-war generation were to be found in the public arts, the theatre, the BBC, politics, the law and academe’ – Frederic Raphael (from the 2020 foreword)
Frederic Raphael’s witty, brilliant novel, written alongside the hit TV series first broadcast in 1976 to huge acclaim, is a classic of post-war British fiction. Following the fortunes of an elite group of students at Cambridge University in the 1950s, and then out into the world, the story perfectly captures the zeitgeist of an era. A gifted, grammar school/scholarship generation sweeps away the old rules of class and empire and make their careers in the media, law, politics and academe, forming the meritocracy that would come to govern the British establishment.
Adam Morris is the scholarship boy who finds friends and lovers in a tight knit circle that includes Alan Parks, Mike Clode, Anna Cunningham, Barbara Ransome, and Bill Bourne. They are all brilliant, but on leaving the gilded world of Cambridge only some win the glittering prizes of real life.
To Raphael, however, worldly success is not the only measure of happiness. A vein of disillusion and sadness runs through the narrative, beneath all the sparkling badinage. And through Adam, Raphael explores unresolved issues of anti-Semitism buried deep in British society, while the sad fate of his roommate and friend Donald hints at the unravelling grip of the old aristocracy.
Frederic Raphael was already a successful screenwriter when the TV series was commissioned, having won an Oscar for the movie Darling, starring Julie Christie. The Glittering Prizes stands on its own as a nuanced and beautifully written novel, gripping today for its portrayal of a generation, and of a fascinating era of change in British culture. Raphael followed the fortunes of the group with two sequels, Fame and Fortune in 2007 and Final Demands in 2010, both of which created much speculation in the media world over the real identity of some of his characters.
‘As a novel, it retains the power to intrigue and entertain; as a social document of the changes that swept thought British life in the first two postwar decades, it comes near to being required reading’ – Miranda Seymour, The Guardian
‘One of the most dazzlingly articulate and beautifully performed productions ever made for television’ – New York Times
‘He belongs to that small pantheon of writers who emerged in the 1950s and 60s who were not afraid to highlight anti-semitism in post-war Britain’ – Jewish Chronicle
’From the youthful excitement of Cambridge to the realities of adulthood, The Glittering Prizes is an unforgettable evocation of 1950s Britain. Through the lives of Adam Morris and his university friends, Frederic Raphael renders the mindset of a gilded generation with sparkling dialogue and acid wit' – Jane Thynne, author of the Clara Vine novels
Frederic Raphael was born in 1931. He was educated at Charterhouse and St John’s College, Cambridge. His first novel, Obbligato, was published in 1956 and this was followed by The Earlsdon Way (1958: Penguin). He has also written a biography, Somerset Maugham and his World (1976), a translation (with Kenneth McLeish) of The Poems of Catullus (1976) and plays for radio and television. His screen plays include Nothing but the Best (1964), Darling (1965), Far From the Madding Crowd (1967), Two For the Road (1968) and Daisy Miller (1974). In 1999 he published Eyes Wide Open, a memoir of his collaboration with Stanley Kubrick on his final film.
