History Man

Regular price €17.50
Quantity:
In stock with our UK publisher. 14-28 days
Delivery/Collection within 10-20 working days
14 days return policy Shipping & Delivery
A01=Malcolm Bradbury
academia
Author_Malcolm Bradbury
black comedy
campus novel
Category=FBA
classic novel
eq_bestseller
eq_fiction
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_modern-contemporary
eq_nobargain
free love
funny
modern classic
satire
university

Product details

  • ISBN 9781035061150
  • Weight: 190g
  • Dimensions: 132 x 199mm
  • Publication Date: 02 Oct 2025
  • Publisher: Pan Macmillan
  • Publication City/Country: GB
  • Product Form: Paperback
Secure checkout Fast Shipping Easy returns

A ruthless satire of academic life, The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury is a witty campus novel and one of the most influential books of the 1970s.

Take a Valium. Have a party. Go on a demo. Shoot a soldier. Make a bang. Bed a friend. That’s your problem-solving system . . . But haven’t we tried all that?

Howard Kirk, native son of the Swinging Sixties, radical university lecturer, and one half of a very modern marriage, is throwing a party. The night will have all sorts of repercussions: for Henry Beamish, Howard’s desperate and easily neglected friend, and for Howard’s wife, promiscuous ’70s liberal and exhausted victim of motherhood.

Funny, disconcerting and provocative, this fiftieth anniversary edition of Bradbury's classic novel brilliantly satirizes a world of academic power struggles as his anti-hero seduces his way around campus. It also reveals a marriage in crisis and demonstrates the fragility of the human heart.

Now part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the very best of modern literature.

Malcolm Bradbury was a well-known novelist, critic and academic, and founder of the creative writing department at the University of East Anglia. He was the author of seven novels, including The History Man and Rates of Exchange, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He was awarded a knighthood in 2000 and died later the same year.

More from this author