Kingsley Amis

1922–1995

English novelist, poet and critic best known for comic fiction about English manners. Born in Clapham, London, he was educated at the City of London School and St John’s College, Oxford, where he formed a lifelong friendship with Philip Larkin. He taught English at Swansea and at Peterhouse, Cambridge. His first novel, Lucky Jim (1954), won the Somerset Maugham Award; later books include Take a Girl Like You, Ending Up and Jake’s Thing. He was knighted in 1990 and died in October 1995. The Old Devils, about a circle of ageing friends in South Wales, won the 1986 Booker Prize.

Timeline of Kingsley Amis’s life

Works

• The Old Devils (1986)

Prizes

• The Old Devils — The Booker Prize 1986: Winner, Shortlist