Angel Pavement

by J.B. Priestley

"What do they call this street? Angel Pavement, isn't it? That's a dam' queer name for a street, though I've known queerer names in my time." (Golspie).Tucked away in the City of London, lies a dingy, almost forgotten side street known as Angel Pavement. Here can be found the headquarters of Twigg & Dersingham, suppliers of veneers and inlays to the furniture trade. Business is slow and the staff struggle against a tide of growing competition, rising prices and recession. Into their midst descends the mysterious and charming Mr Golspie and the promise of a brighter future. Be sure, life will never be the same again for all those concerned with the firm...the likes of Herbert Norman Smeeth, the cashier; Harold Turgis, the clerk; Lilian Matfield, the secretary-typist; and the boss, Howard Bromport Dersingham!Angel Pavement is one of the great London a vivid evocation of the sprawling and crowded metropolis during the era of the painful Depression of the inter-war years. It is also a splendidly perceptive examination of what happens to a small group of office staff when the destructive force of a rapacious financial predator is unleashed among them.This is J.B. Priestley at his best...indeed most critics agree that Angel Pavement was his finest novel, with only Bright Day a near contender! It arrived just after the huge success of The Good Companions, and, though it is darker than the delightful earlier novel, it proved just as popular...and probably more significant.Great Northern Books of Ilkley have been bringing out new editions of a number of Priestley's works, and that Angel Pavement was the choice in 2012 proved a source of pleasure to all Priestley fans...and, hopefully, the availability of the novel once again will help new readers discover the unique style and magic of J.B. Priestley.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, London, British Literature, Literature, Novels

608 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1930

About the author

John Boynton Priestley was an English writer. He was the son of a schoolmaster, and after schooling he worked for a time in the local wool trade. Following the outbreak of the Great War in 1914, Priestley joined the British Army, and was sent to France - in 1915 taking part in the Battle of Loos. After being wounded in 1917 Priestley returned to England for six months; then, after going back to the Western Front he suffered the consequences of a German gas attack, and, treated at Rouen, he was declared unfit for active service and was transferred to the Entertainers Section of the British Army.

When Priestley left the army he studied at Cambridge University, where he completed a degree in Modern History and Political Science. Subsequently he found work as theatre reviewer with the Daily News, and also contributed to the Spectator, the Challenge and Nineteenth Century. His earliest books included The English Comic Characters (1925), The English Novel (1927), and English Humour (1928). His breakthrough came with the immensely popular novel The Good Companions, published in 1929, and Angel Pavement followed in 1930. He emerged, too, as a successful dramatist with such plays as Dangerous Corner (1932), Time and the Conways (1937), When We Are Married (1938) and An Inspector Calls (1947).
The publication of English Journey in 1934 emphasised Priestley's concern for social problems and the welfare of ordinary people.
During the Second World War Priestley became a popular and influential broadcaster with his famous Postscripts that followed the nine o'clock news BBC Radio on Sunday evenings. Starting on 5th June 1940, Priestley built up such a following that after a few months it was estimated that around 40 per cent of the adult population in Britain was listening to the programme.
Some members of the Conservative Party, including Winston Churchill, expressed concern that Priestley might be expressing left-wing views on the programme, and, to his dismay, Priestley was dropped after his talk on 20th October 1940.
After the war Priestley continued his writing, and his work invariably provoked thought, and his views were always expressed in his blunt Yorkshire style.
His prolific output continued right up to his final years, and to the end he remained the great literary all-rounder. His favourite among his books was for many years the novel Bright Day, though he later said he had come to prefer The Image Men.
It should not be overlooked that Priestley was an outstanding essayist, and many of his short pieces best capture his passions and his great talent and his mastery of the English language. He set a fine example for any would-be author.

Reviews

[Paul Bryant · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fat slab of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk, snap some off and shove it in your gob. I defy you to tell me you don’t like it. Well, I am very sorry if you are on a diet. Oops.

JB Priestley was a huge seller back in the day (20s and 30s) but “nobody” reads him anymore, in the same way nobody listens to Rudy Vallee and his Connecticut Yankees or watches Shirley Temple movies (quite rightly!).

No, sorry, that sounds a little mean. We can’t all be reading everything that people used to think was the bee’s pyjamas and the cat’s toboggan, or whatever the saying is. If we did there wouldn’t be any space for new stuff.

So that means there must be some sort of process to save the really great stuff from oblivion and let the merely good stuff slide. And the process is that mysterious one whereby some books are bestowed with the title of “classic” and most aren’t.

Some “classics” were big sellers in their day AND they got to be called classics, like Booth Tarkington. Some “classics” sold totally zilch and had to be dragged from their graves by fanboys decades later, like Moby Dick. And of course many very big sellers entertained the people hugely but never got any kind of status & so faded into oblivion like Marie Corelli and Edward Bulwer-Lytton.

I’m guessing that JB Priestley is sort of in the phantom zone, not quite forgotten but not quite read anymore. Naturally if they make a cute miniseries of Angel Pavement starring Timothee Chalamet as Harold Turgis and Jennifer Lawrence as Lilian Matfield, etc etc, then Angel Pavement will sell another million immediately, as it did in 1930.

JB never got called a classic because the critics hated him and he hated them along with their darling James Joyce which from JB’s point of view they could shove up their arse. So this is why they always said that JB was middlebrow rubbish. And he is if you live on the Parthenon heights where you breakfast on sliced Thomas Bernhard and dine on a huge wedge of Robert Musil with a soupcon of Clarice Lispector to follow.

Anyhow, if you ever wondered what life in a small dull London office in 1930 was like, then wonder no more. I liked it. It was normal. It was funny and sad and horrible and then funny again. There are some hugely entertaining characters, although you would never be inviting them round for tea, in fact you wouldn’t want to poke any of them with your grandmother’s ten foot barge pole, but that just makes it more fun.

[Nigeyb · Rating 4 out of 5]

The highest compliment I can pay to a book like Angel Pavement (1930) by J.B. Priestley is that I was sad when I'd finished and now wonder what happened to the characters after the events of the story.

First published in 1930, Angel Pavement gives the reader an intimate and credible insight into London life during the era through the employees of Twigg & Dersingham, a small company which supplies inlays and veneers to the furniture trade. The Great Depression provides a sombre backdrop and gives the events of the novel added poignancy and impact.

Angel Pavement is magnficent: a vivid novel with a powerful emotional depth. The foibles and proccupations of each of the memorable characters is lovingly described and all are completely believable.

It reminds me of London Belongs to Me by Norman Collins, and To Serve Them All My Days by R.F. Delderfield. Two other books that were similarly immersive and with an array of interesting characters, and to whom I was very sad to bid farewell.

4/5

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have just re-read ‘Angel Pavement’ for the first time in more than 40 years, and I am delighted that I was encouraged to do so following the re-issue of this classic by Great Northern Books (at £9.99 the new paperback edition is excellent value). I know I was impressed when I first read it as a young man sometime in the 1960s, but I couldn’t honestly recall exactly why, or say that I remembered too much about the story; and so it was an enjoyable experience to rediscover this excellent novel and to be reminded of just how good J. B. Priestley was at his best.
The novel was published in 1930, and the setting is Depression-era London and a firm called Twigg & Dersingham, whose premises (“in what was once a four-storey dwelling house where some merchant-alderman lived off his East India dividends”) are sandwiched between the Kwick-Work Razor Blade Company and the London and Counties Supply Stores at Number 8 Angel Pavement.
Angel Pavement may sound colourful and romantic as an address, but, in truth, it is a typical City side street, except that it is shorter, narrower and dingier than most. The irony is that it was the novelty of the address that caught they eye of James Golspie, the rogue who proves to be the ruin of Twigg & Dersingham, when he was looking for a ‘victim’. “Do you know how I came to your place?” he says to Lilian Matfield. “I looked up the names of firms in this line of business, and Twigg & Dersingham took my fancy, not because of their name but because of the address. Angel Pavement did it. I was so tickled by that name. I said to myself ‘I must look at that lot first of all.’”
What an unfortunate twist of fate that proves to be. The firm, which imports veneers and inlays to sell to cabinet makers and furniture manufacturers, is struggling to cope with the consequences of poor management, declining demand and an economy hardly geared to a sudden improvement in trade. Into their world descends Golspie, the con-man with a smooth tongue and all the push and panache of the natural predator. He has just arrived in London on a Baltic cargo ship with a display case full of veneer samples and the sole UK agency for a new product, and he is looking to persuade some gullible fool that together they are set to make a fortune.
The fool in question is Howard Bromport Dersingham, the ineffective, conceited owner of Twigg & Dersingham, a man not really suited to the cut-and-thrust of business (he got into it almost by accident) and soon out of his depth in his dealings with an experienced swindler like Golspie.
I worked in a number of offices in my teenage years, and while that was in the 1950s rather than the time of this novel, and it was Sheffield rather than London, those places I knew, and the people in them, were not really much different from those depicted by Priestley in ‘Angel Pavement’. I am sure that I knew people niot too far removed from Herbert Norman Smeeth, the cashier; Harold Turgis, the railway shipping clerk; and Lilian Matfield, the secretary-typist.
Priestley is the master of the art of describing his characters with affection and a faint touch of humour, and his flair for dialogue came to the fore long before he became a successful dramatist. He is such fun to read –even when the subject is deadly serious.
Smeeth, the colourless cashier, is typical of a breed of senior clerk/office manager that was commonplace in those days. He loves his repetitive job. “He obviously thought of himself as a real factor of the entity known as Twigg & Dersingham. When he entered the office he did not dwindle, he grew; (in the office) he was more himself than he was in the street outside…he had a gratitude, a zest, and eagerness that couldn’t be found in the others (his colleagues)….His days at the office were filled with important and exciting events. He had spent years making neat little columns of figures, entering ledgers and then balancing them, but this was not drudgery to him.” He is delighted when his salary is increased from £315 a year to £375, though he worries that his wife will want to spend the extra income immediately rather than, as he wants, save something for the rainy day that is always threatening.
Angel Pavement is told through each of the firm’s employees, and, apart from Smeeth, the other key employees are Turgis, the clerk who constantly dreams of romance, “a thinnish, awkward young man with a rather long neck, poor shoulders and large, clumsy hands and feet”; and Lilian Matfield, who considers the job rather beneath her (“there are those like Miss Matfield, the daughters of professional gentlemen, who condescend to the office and the typewriter”). Poor, sad Turgis makes the mistake of believing that Golspie’s spoilt daughter, Lena, cares for him when she is merely using him to idle away a few boring hours; while Miss Matfield, stuck in spinsterhood and a miserable existence, dreams of escape…and when , latterly, a relationship with Golspie himself seems in the offing, she is left stranded and embarrassed...and slumps back to her old world suitably chastened and resigned to her fate.
Priestley began this novel in October 1929, around the time when his previous novel, The Good Companions, was taking off in a big way. He was keen to ensure that this was not another light and romantic slice of fiction, and it is much more serious and darker than its predecessor. He powerfully evokes the social background of the period, especially the constant fear of unemployment among people who lived from week to week and could barely afford to save. It was a time when the loss of one’s job was not merely a blow, but a disaster from which it might take years for a person to recover. Even Smeeth, who in one sense feels so content, even secure, in his work, knows how precarious his world really is.
The firm’s owner, Howard Dersingham, unfortunately, is oblivious to looming disaster. When he agrees to Golspie’s request for his commission to be paid before the customers have settled their bills, it is a recipe for the final disaster…yet he then wonders why the firm’s woes are suddenly compounded. “Golspie’s cleared out, he’s done us in,” he cries. “Oh, the rotten swine! God, I was a fool to trust that chap a yard. It’s damnably unfair, Smeeth. We’ve simply been swindled.”
If you have never read this novel, I would urge you to seek it out and give it a try. It is vintage Priestley.
---

[Natsnock · Rating 4 out of 5]

The whole time I was reading the book, I was thinking how suitable it is for mini series. As it turns out, there are 2 of them - one from the 50s and one from the 60s (unfortunately nowhere to be found for downloading). So, if you're hooked on British period dramas, looking not so much for good dramatic plot, but for a fine depiction of everyday life and the subtle irony of presenting the characters the British are so good at, this one might be for you - London in the 30s, but in the form of a book.

[Bettie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bettie's Books

[J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This has no real tricks up its sleeve, but draws the reader nonetheless. We have what amounts to a large-cast Dickens or Trollope outing, complete with competing narrative threads and class discordance. This begins much as all London novels do-- in the swirl of life being lived, the just-manageable chaos driven by commerce and urbanism unbound-- and somehow manages to narrow down to separate characters by the early chapters. And great characters, in large part because of their un-remarkableness.

He looked what he ought to have been, in the opinion of a few thousand hasty and foolish observers of this life, and what he was not--a grey drudge. Angel Pavement and its kind, too hot and airless in summer, too raw in winter, too wet in spring, and too smoky and foggy in autumn, assisted by long hours of artificial light, by hasty breakfasts and illusory lunches, by walks in boots made of sodden cardboard and rides in germ-haunted buses, by fuss all day and worry at night, had blanched the whole man, had thinned his hair and turned it grey, wrinkled his forehead and the space at each side of his short grey moustache, put eyeglasses at one end of his nose and slightly sharpened and reddened the other end...

At the opening of Angel Pavement we've left the Great War behind, but the marks remain, a great shadow has passed over civilization. Like a lot of between-the-wars novels, there is the sense of trying a little over-hard at inducing amnesia, getting the old peacetime gears and levers to work again, with a hopeful but semi-blindered populace. The story takes us from Englishman's-home-is-his-castle pomp to the familiar threadbare boarding house existence, a matter of streets or tube stops away. The milieu will be familiar to readers of Norman Collins or Patrick Hamilton. Priestley's basic premise is picaresque, giving the reader a few pointed glimpses at the follies and foibles of the faces on the street, via the particular faces he's chosen.

... a tall, cadaverous virgin of forty-five or so, who displayed, especially in evening clothes, an uncomfortable amount of sharp gleaming bone, just as if the upper part of her was a relief map done in ivory. In order that she might not be overlooked in company and also to protect herself, she had developed and brought very near to perfection a curiously disturbing manner, which conveyed a boundless suggestion of the malicious, the mocking, the sarcastic, the sardonic, the ironical. What she actually said was harmless enough but her tone of voice, her expression, her smile, her glance, all these suggested that her words had some devilish inner meaning...

Not long after the structure is laid out, as the characters become more familiar, we're treated to comedic turns in the story, where perhaps the reader is led to know more about what will happen than the people involved. In fact, at points the Dickens set pieces and face-offs begin more and more to resemble the more latter-day style of absurdity meeting staunch postwar reserve. Not altogether distant from the Ealing Studio films of the later decades-- but all is not well. We begin by midbook to get the feeling that things may not work out for the best, as they do in the movies.

No need here to summarize the proceedings; best to say that things will not go according to plan, nor will there be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover by the end. Priestley is taking stock, somewhere before mid-century, and finding things are amiss in his remarkable world. He's worried. There will be no eureka moment, or neat conclusion, but safe to say he's on to something with that.

[Kerri Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

A tale of common life experience, of fantasies and fears coming true.

I appreciated this book far more the second time I read it because I saw more in it. At first, I felt that Priestley was giving way too much information about his characters, but by the end of the book it had dawned on me that he was writing about fundamental lessons in life that we can all relate to and, in order to do that, he needed to give the reader a thorough look into the hearts and minds of his characters.
The focus of the story is the firm of Dersingham & Twigg, struggling to survive in 1930 London, a time of great economic hardship. It's address is a street called Angel Pavement, hence the name of the book. The catalyst of the tale is the arrival at the firm of a man of no scruples, Mr Golspie, who intends to use the firm to make a lot of money very quickly and then get out. Both he and his beautiful daughter are incarnations of the fantasies that two staff members, Turgis and Miss Matfield, have on a daily basis. Turgis hungers for love and sex; Miss Matfield longs for adventure and excitement. Well, both get their fantasies made real through the Golspies, but with devastating consequences. Smeeth, the office manager, yearns for safety and security but has always feared that he will not have it. Again, through the actions of Golspie, his fears come true. Then there's the principal of the firm, Mr Dersingham, who is going through the motions of being a businessman; his heart is not in it and he just muddles through his life. When Golspie departs, he has turned Mr Dersingham's world upside down but we are left with the idea that he will actually begin to live the life he has always wanted to.
Priestley is saying through the lives of his characters 'be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it', but he is also saying that out of great pain and upheaval, life can improve because we become wiser and more mature. This is a timeless story of human experience, and Priestley does a masterful job of describing the scenes in which it is set, London in the grip of a bleak, depressing winter. He also captures perfectly the mangled English of the working class British. This is indeed a book about life that we can all relate to.

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

What opinions are still left with regard to JB Priestley vary. School teachers are still happy to make An Inspector Calls the go-to book for mixed ability English classes, and Stephen Daldry’s wonderful stage version is still doing the rounds after 30 years. The other plays and the novels have not faired so well. Every so often interest is stirred in The Good Companions, or someone on Front Row reminisces about a production they saw eons ago of Time and the Conways. And nobody finds fault with his English Journey even if fewer have read it than claim to have done so.

In days gone by he sold by the van load and was an almost ever present on the wireless. Even then he was looked down upon by the likes of Virginia Woolf “a tradesman", Graham Greene “a fourth rate Dickensian” and QR Leavis “middle brow at best low brow at worst”.

He always had his champions (always including himself) and I am pleased to join them. I have a feeling that he squared the circle; that his writing is genuinely great while refusing to pander to the supposed refinements of great literature.

Plots and storylines are not his strong point. In a way this is a novel that hangs on a very flimsy plot. But character studies and reflections on human nature are his forte. I have rarely become more involved with or cared more about a group of folk who seemingly have very little to care about than in Angel Pavement. I even care about what happened to them after the book closes.

I’m having something of a Priestley festival at the moment and have just ordered Lost Empires. Thank you to Great Northern Books for bringing them back into print.

[Gary Armstrong · Rating 5 out of 5]

A magnificent novel. The characters feel real. As I was reading, I could draw parallels between them and people that I had met in my life. Although for the most part they are not entirely sympathetic characters, the situations they endure, largely as result of circumstances beyond their control, do spark an emotional response. The descriptions of London are very evocative; at times, it feels like the City lives and breathes, invoking a threatening atmosphere that mirrors the plot, which unfolds with disastrous consequences for most of the characters. It’s difficult to close the book without a sense of sadness - you want to know what happened to these people whose lives were left close to ruin.

[Jean · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read this book when I was in my teens and seemed to read it at a quicker pace than I read it this time. I have a first edition hard-back published in 1930. Unlike many books written at a galloping pace today, J.B. Priestley's novel proceeds at a very leisurely pace. Characterisation and dialogue are strong, allowing each of the employees in the small, struggling business in dreary Angel Pavement to be clearly drawn. When the mysterious Mr Goldspie and his pretty daughter arrive, it seems as though the business takes on a new lease of life as orders and sales increase and two of the employees form personal attachments to Mr Goldspie and Lena, his young daughter. I will not spoil the outcome of the long novel, but suggest that you read it as J.B Priestley was a gifted writer and deserves to have his novels, plays and works of non-fiction read.

[Auriel Roe · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an unusual book with sections in it that were like long passages in the Pinter/Beckett/Ionesco school of thought. Ponderous descriptions but I loved the detail, many wouldn't, unused to the absurd. Good story, a con man totally messes up an odd little veneer business staffed by hopeless subordinates.

[Alan Mackay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reminded me of Norman Collins' London Belongs To Me. Both could be described as soap operas but none the worse for that. A must read for anyone interested in London and a London working life that has mostly disappeared for ever.

[Malcolm Noble · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly one of the great "London" books of 20th Century. Not very cheerful, I'm afraid, but well written. Take your time with this one

[Evi Routoula · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ο αγαπημένος Τζον Μπόιντον Πρίστλει που μας είναι γνωστός από τα καταπληκτικά θεατρικά του έργα ( Εμείς και ο χρόνος, ο Επιθεωρητής έρχεται κλπ) μας δίνει εδώ ένα πολύ δυνατό μυθιστόρημα.
Βρισκόμαστε στο Λονδίνο του μεσοπολέμου, επικρατεί ανεργία και φτώχεια, η Ευρώπη δεν έχει συνέλεθει ακόμα από τον Πρώτο Παγκόσμιο Πόλεμο ( που τότε τον ονόμαζαν ακόμα Μεγάλο Πόλεμο, πού να φανταζόντουσαν τι άλλο τους περίμενε!). Μια μικρή επιχείρηση στο Σίτι προσπαθεί να ορθοποδήσει με δυσκολία: το αφεντικό είναι ένας μεγαλοαστός που δεν τα καταφέρνει καλά με τις επιχειρήσεις, ο τύπος του Άγγλου τζέντλεμαν που προτιμάει τη λέσχη του και τις ένδοξες ιστορίες του στρατού της παλιάς αυτοκρατορίας. Ο αρχιλογιστής είναι ο αφοσιωμένος υπάλληλος που μοχθεί για το καλό της εταιρείας, που μια ζωή αποταμιεύει για ασφάλεια. Ο νεαρός υπάλληλος προσπαθεί να βρει την ευτυχία και την ολοκλήρωση μέσα από μια γνωριμία με μια όμορφη γυναίκα, εργάζεται μηχανικά μόνο και μονό για να επιβιώνει. Η δακτυλογράφος ζει μέσα στην βαρεμάρα ενός ιδρύματος για κυρίες, διαβάζει μυθιστορήματα και κάνει όνειρα για περιπέτειες στην εξωτική Ριβιέρα. Και τότε έρχεται από το πουθενά ο μαγικός τυχοδιώκτης, ο κομπιναδόρος που επιπλέει πάντα, για να τους προτείνει συνεργασία.
Πρόκειται για ένα αριστούργημα της λογοτεχνίας, μια κραυγή κατά του πολιτικο-οικονομικού συστήματος: οι φτωχοί παραμένουν φτωχοί, η μόνη τους διέξοδος είναι το τσαγάδικο και η παμπ, η φτηνή μπύρα και το νερουλό τσάι. Οι παλιά αριστοκρατία είναι αδύναμη πλέον να διεκδικήσει και να παλέψει, βαυακαλίζεται στα παλιά μεγαλεία. Ο νέος ήρωας είναι ο απατεώνας, ο νεόπλουτος που δεν σέβεται τίποτα. Όπως δεν σέβεται τίποτα και η ίδια η κοινωνία.
Καταπληκτικός συγγραφέας ο Πρίστλει και δυστυχώς όχι όσο θα έπρεπε αναγνωρισμένος στην Ελλάδα. Μαζί με τον Όργουελ και τον Γκρέιαμ Γρην αποτελούν τους μεγάλους Άγγλους του 20ου αιώνα.

[CQM · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining but the first half is overwritten and the second half is slightly undercooked.

[Estott · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good book, rather sad overall. A study of the employees in a small London office, all leading lives of "quiet desperation". In comes a rather charismatic and piratical figure, and his daughter and everyone's life is affected. It's pretty obvious from the beginning that things will not end well, but the characters are all well drawn.

[Shaun Rylands · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have thoroughly enjoyed reading Angel Pavement by JB Priestly, an undervalued author. I admired the atmosphere, characterisation and themes of loneliness and fragility. No more gas. He hadn’t a shilling, he had only eightpence. He couldn’t even commit suicide, couldn’t afford it.

[Tim Preston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting 1929 novel that brings to life a London my grandparents knew, in the period of peace that did not yet know it was 'Between the Wars'.

'Angel Pavement', named after a fictional street in the City of London where much of the action takes place, concerns a commercial scam and the failure of a business, but it is not a thriller or a crime novel. Its author JB Priestley was once a very famous writer and radio broadcaster in Britain, although is less known now, except for his play 'An Inspector Calls'.

The book reminds us that it is choosing to focus on one story among many it could have chosen of people in the big city whose lives may affect each other in ways they may not even notice themselves.

Priestley begins by running through the various businesses in the little street, each one of which he acknowledges may have its own stories to tell, before settling on the office of Twigg & Dersingham, suppliers of lacquers and inlays to the furniture trade, on which this novel will focus.

Then we meet the early morning cleaners, cleaning the office before the office staff arrive. Here we learn about the cleaners whom we never meet again, although they must still be at work cleaning early each morning throughout the rest of the novel, largely forgotten by the office staff who are the main characters.

'Angel Pavement' is about half way in time between the London of Charles Dickens' first novels and London today. Priestley's language and style are of course more modern than Dickens, although, like Dickens, he focuses on a large cast of characters rather than on one or two main characters with everyone else just supporting cast, as modern novels tend to do.

This is a World in which the City of London is still a commercial rather than a purely financial district. Many of its businesses still deal in real things like tea, brandy and furniture rather than just moving money around.

It was largely accepted that mediocrities were often promoted to run companies because of who their uncle was, ahead of abler men.

Sexual standards were sufficiently complicated that at one point Priestley can hint gently that an unmarried 26 year old secretary is thinking of having an affair with an older man, and expect his readers to understand, but cannot say so explicitly.

JB Priestley probably drew on his own early years as a commercial clerk in Bradford 1910-1914 as source material. Priestley himself was more thoughtful and intellectual than the characters he depicts here, yet he still portrays them sympathetically and respectfully.

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

For the first half of this book I was a little surprised and sort of (just sort of) disappointed in what seemed to be a story about banal working life in a veneer supply firm (snooze) that included nothing but stereotypical, stock characters--the earnest errand boy, the dull numbers man, the mouth breathing assistant, the bitchy secretary, etc. It was fascinating then to see Priestley turn this slowly on its head so that they all became dimensional -- and how in some cases-- and what could have been a pat, happy ending (which I sort of wanted. Sort of.) was nothing of the kind. Way more sophisticated this read is than I initially thought.

Oh and he's a typical 1920s racist. Seems I've been reading a lot of these guys lately.

[Anton Segers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Uit deze knappe BBC-radiodramabewerking blijkt tot mijn aangename verbazing hoe cynisch Priestley in de jaren 30 al durfde spotten met het heilige huisje van de Britse kapitalistische bedrijfsethiek.
Terloops toont Priestley de onnozelheid van zowel mannen als vrouwen in de liefde, en het gemak waarmee immorele types hun slag kunnen slaan.
Subtiel is het niet, maar het is met voelbaar sardonisch plezier neergepend. Dat slaat over.

[Mia · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 - good depiction of London at the time, wanted more plot!

[Jenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pity the generation that lived through the great depression. I thought this was one of the most moving books I have read for a long time. It is not dramatic, the action such as it is is very low key, the characters are mundane and the subject it deals with (office work) is hardly going to be thrilling, but Priestley had a knack of really getting under the skin of his characters so you cared about the outcome. I ended up wondering what happened to Turgis, Mr Smeeth, Miss Matfield et all after the book finished.

Basically the plot centres round the small firm of Twigg and Dursingham located in a London backstreet. The firm is struggling: the book implies Dursingham inherited it and makes for an incompetent manager. He employs Mr Smeeth, a cautious accounts manager, perpetually worrying about the future; Turgis the lonely teenage clerk, living in lodgings and dreaming of romance and Miss Matfield the frustrated, intelligent secretary, who lives in a women's shared residential house. Into their lives strides the larger than life Mr Golspie, with promises of cheap imports from abroad and easy profits to be made and his glamorous daughter.

It's a close observation of life in London in 1930. Apparently very popular in its time, but Priestley has gone out of fashion as the years have gone by (unfairly I think). If you are interested in social history this is a fantastic book, I loved the detail, for instance the tobacconists shop round the corner from the office, Turgis setting out for the bright lights of London's West End on a Saturday night or the dreadful dinner party with the couple recently back from Singapore. Some of it I remembered as dim reflections from my Grandparents, such as the Front Room which was kept respectable and never used except for high days and holidays. I remember seven of us squeezed into a back room just so it could be left empty. And the cramped sitting room of the Smeeths, full of cheap ornaments proudly displayed, also just like my Gran.

Having a teenage son myself who is surly and spotty and girl mad I felt particularly for the lonely Turgis. I was nearly in tears when he tried to gas himself and realised he didn't have the money to pay for it, and when he finally hooks up with Poppy and realises the girl of his dreams was under his nose all along, so touching.... Saturday night: the children of the pavements and chimney-pots came pouring out, seeking adventure, entertainment, profit or forgetfulness in the vast impersonal thunder and glare of he city; and soon these two were lost in the crowd. Forget Dickens.

Interestingly Priestley doesn't indulge in back stories. The story is firmly focused on the present only. A modern writer would flash back to Dursingham's and Smeeth's war experiences, or Turgis's difficult upbringing, but there is none of this. Presumably not fashionable in his own time, they were probably keen to forget the War had ever been.

My copy was so battered and yellowed it was probably bought not long after it was printed! I didn't like taking it places for I was worried it would fall apart. I don't normally keep books after reading but I'll keep this one.

[Ginni · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first J.B.Priestley, an author I've been meaning to try for years; this reading was partly inspired by going to see a production of 'When we are married' at the West Yorkshire Playhouse a month or so past. I really felt that as an honorary Yorkshire woman, now living close to Bradford, I must read Priestley. I wanted to read 'The Good Companions', but 'Angel Pavement' was on the library shelves in this Great Northern Books paperback edition.
I suppose Priestley has gone out of fashion; this new edition seems timely, then. I thoroughly enjoyed this, very much a book of its time in many ways, and with some phrases and attitudes that may jar with modern readers. All reviewers agree that the portrait of London is tremendous; albeit a London of the 1930s with no tower blocks and less sophistication, it is recognisably the City and the Docks, the bustle, crowds, dirt and noise, the lights and the traffic, many people yet much loneliness and disillusion.
There are signs of our society to come, in the attitude of the young people, seeking something they cannot quite put into words, something different. The grip of 'the talkies' in a pre TV and computer age is interesting, and the social venues of tea rooms and pubs are still recognisable. There is a marvellous description of London in the grip of the run-up to Christmas, which applies absolutely to us now.
It is the characters who are marvellous, though. None are glamourised, except perhaps the 'villains', yet even they are not completely dark and wicked. The cast is small, yet we feel sympathy for all the inhabitants of the office of Twigg and Dersingham, Angel Pavement. Their faults are there, yet also their humanity, their hopes, fears and ambitions. I was quite gripped and read quickly, although the outcome is not a surprise. Definitely recommended.

[Miles Chicken · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are just too many scenic jewels to mention from this 1930 novel. The edgy dinner party given by the businessman to the rather shady braggart who claims to put the entrepreneur's business back on the map. The newsagent who despairs at the youth of the day coming into his shop asking for a packet of gaspers and wonders where the more elevated word cigarette had disappeared to. The terrible lodgings endured by people forced to come to London to work and send money back to their ailing parents in the provinces. You are transported back to an era of music halls and put upon accountants taking advantage of having the house to themselves so they can listen to classical music on a radio that sports a gramophone horn as an amplifier. Authentic and with a warning, don't eat in restaurants where the proprietor has to grab pedestrians from the pavement to get any custom.

[Tony Hannan]

27. Angel Pavement, by JB Priestley. Bradford-born, I was familiar with JB's travelogue and plays but not his out of fashion novels, shockingly. This immaculately structured if politically muddled 1920s London yarn makes a strong claim for his Dickens-like talent to be rescued from the literary snobs. Funny, moving and bleak (its characters often antisemitic), this 2018 edition has a foreword by Sutherland himself. His book came out earlier so likely got the gig. 8/10 #SutherlandChallenge #Books

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit darker and, as a result, not as enjoyable a read as Good Companions or Festival, but certainly more realistic. As usual for Priestley, the characters are wonderfully developed, although in this case he shows more weaknesses and faults than quirks. A slice-of-life of Londoners in the late-1920s.

[Colm Mccrory · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great London novel, sits up there with Norman Collins, Patrick Hamilton, Monica Dickens, Somerset Maugham, etc.

[Glass River]

Like its predecessor The Good Companions (1929), Angel Pavement was a runaway bestseller and what Priestley liked to call his ‘golden gusher’. It continued to gush throughout his long writing career, subsidising many more ambitious ventures in authorship. Not everyone took pleasure in Priestley’s triumph. Graham Greene, at an early struggling stage of his career, published his would-be bestseller Stamboul Train with the same publisher, Heinemann. Priestley, through the publisher, got a sight of Greene’s proofs, in which he was portrayed as ‘Quin Savory’, a vulgar, fourth-rate Dickensian, ‘Sold a hundred thousand copies . . . Two hundred characters.’ And with a lustful eye for the ladies (which Priestley did indeed possess). Using his power in the firm, and the threat of libel action, Priestley enforced changes to Greene’s text.
Resolutely middlebrow in tone (it flew off the shelf like hot cakes in the ‘tuppenny’ cornershop libraries of the time), the mood of Angel Pavement is notably grimmer than that of The Good Companions, registering the traumatic impact of 1929’s Great Depression. It retains a period charm.
The action centres on the firm of Twigg & Dersingham, London dealers in veneer and inlay. Their establishment is in ‘Angel Pavement’, a sleepy cul-de-sac in the City of London. The firm is an old-fashioned enterprise run with old-fashioned decency under the management of the middle-aged and ‘gentlemanly’ Howard Dersingham, assisted by his similarly antique head clerk, Hubert Smeeth. Enter James Golspie, a vulgar businessman who has come from the Baltic states with a consignment of suspiciously cheap timber. There is something ‘faintly piratical’ about Golspie, but he gains the confidence of the gullible Dersingham. Less effectively, he tries to seduce the firm’s secretary, Miss Lilian Matfield, offering to take her on a dirty weekend to Brighton. Within six months Golspie has ruined the firm. He leaves Dersingham and Smeeth both unemployed and, at their age, unemployable. The last we see of the villain is on board a luxury liner, with his coquettish daughter (who has broken the heart of one of the firm’s clerks), sailing off to South America. The novel’s principal assertion – one of meagre comfort to the British people, facing ten years’ grinding ‘austerity’ (i.e. deprivation and poverty) – is that bad things like this always come, like Dracula, from abroad. As I write, the same (‘it’s the Eurozone, stupid’) line is being trotted out while Britain faces another ‘austere’ decade.

[Joel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the most Edwardian of English novels. That period between the greatest Queen – Victoria – and the end of the Empire heralded by two world wars. When England had reached its apex; a global superpower but creaking; a barge rusted out and taking on water. There was nothing left to hope for, England had done what she was going to do, had conquered what she was going to conquer — she was going quietly into the night, though she probably didn’t know it yet. Contentedly, if not enthusiastically, at least with a certain degree of resignation.

“Angel Pavement” was set during that time. It is also an Edwardian story — not as good as W. Somerset Maugham, but still good — the tale of a little shop on a backwards street called Angel Pavement which was slowly going under. The tired clerks going about their daily lives without considering the drying up of business. England always is, always was, always has been — no reason to believe it won’t continue on. In the full style of the period, Angel Pavement was long and meandering and full of digressions that enriched the story of turn-of-the-20th-century London; but there was at least a plot. Into the struggling business came a fraudster, a man of no scruples, who promised prosperity — or at least a new lease on business — and delivered only bankruptcy. But the business was bankrupt anyways; times had changed, the world had moved on but old London had not followed. He left, at the end, leaving the protagonists each with heartbreak, poverty and the need to struggle in a city that no longer really rewarded enterprise.

This was a lovely book, for those who love Edwardian literature and Edwardian England and who feel a little bit of nostalgia themselves for a world where nothing was really achievable — so why try too hard? After all the grasping of empire, Londoners were left with their days in the office, their evenings at the ‘talkies’, their flirtations, a few dinner parties and a double whiskey with soda at the club. And what is wrong with that?

[Robert Slack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book review thoughts time, and I find that putting this novel in a pigeon hole difficult. It's a well crafted good read, in the best story-telling tradition. An interesting, if somewhat predictable, plot, with many interesting and colourful characters. But, equally, it doesn't delve deep into their personalities, and so everything remains rather unsatisfyinglly superficial. Character insights are rather shallow, and yet still highly believable, the mark of a consumate story teller. And the story paints a graphic, highly claustrophobic, picture of life in London between the wars. The sense of mild despair in everyone's lives is pervasive. An atmosphere in which everyone is just getting on with what they must do to survive, without any real drive, ambition or hope. The primary source of hope appears to be big screen escapism afforded by the cinemas, this being the dawning age of the silver screen. And this only underlines the necessity to escape the daily drudgery. And, of course, people in that vulnerable position are prone to be preyed upon by the unscrupulous, which of course is exactly what happens here. If J. B. Priestley is a 2nd-tier writer, he is certainly at the top of that tier (a description I once found attributed to Somerset Maughan). This is a very worthy novel, one that paints a vivid, if sombre, portrait of a time and place. But, top flight it is not. Recommended with caveats.