A Time Of Hope (Strangers and Brothers) [Paperback]

Charles Percy Snow (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 23, 2008 | Series: Strangers and Brothers

Time of Hope is the third in the Strangers and Brothers series and tells the story of Lewis Eliot's early life. As a child he is faced with his father's bankruptcy. As a young man, he finds his career at the Bar hindered by a neurotic wife. Separation from her is impossible however.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

C.P. Snow was born in Leicester, on 15 October 1905. He was educated from age 11 at Alderman Newton's School for boys where he excelled in most subjects, enjoying a reputation for an astounding memory. In 1923 he gained an external scholarship in science at London University, whilst working as a laboratory assistant at Newton's to gain the necessary practical experience, because Leicester University, as it was to become, had no chemistry or physics departments at that time. Having achieved a first class degree, followed by a Master of Science he won a studentship in 1928 which he used to research at the famous Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. Snow went on to become a Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge, in 1930 where he also served as a tutor, but his position became increasingly titular as he branched into other areas of activity. In 1934, he began to publish scientific articles in Nature, and then The Spectator before becoming editor of the journal Discovery in 1937. However, he was also writing fiction during this period and in 1940 'Strangers and Brothers' was published. This was the first of eleven novels in the series and was later renamed 'George Passant' when 'Strangers and Brothers' was used to denote the series itself. Discovery became a casualty of the war, closing in 1940. However, by this time Snow was already involved with the Royal Society, who had organised a group to specifically use British scientific talent operating under the auspices of the Ministry of Labour. He served as the Ministry's technical director from 1940 to 1944. After the war, Snow became a civil service commissioner responsible for recruiting scientists to work for the government. He also returned to writing, continuing the Strangers and Brothers series of novels. 'The Light 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 the final novel 'Last Things' wasn't published until 1970. He married the novelist Pamela Hansford Johnson in 1950 and they had one son, Philip, in 1952. Snow was knighted in 1957 and became a life peer in 1964, taking the title Baron Snow of the City Leicester. He also joined Harold Wilson's first government as Parliamentary Secretary to the new Minister of Technology. When the department ceased to exist in 1966 he became a vociferous back-bencher in the House of Lords. After finishing the Strang

Product Details

• Paperback: 396 pages
• Publisher: House of Stratus (September 23, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1842324284
• ISBN-13: 978-1842324288
• Product Dimensions: 2.5 x 1.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,392,204 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars WOW!, October 19, 2005

By 

C. L Wilson (Elmhurst, Illinois United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Time Of Hope (Strangers and Brothers) (Paperback)

One of the finest works of fiction that I have ever read. It just gripped me, from start to finish, in clean, tight, expressive prose. Hard to believe it is fiction, it reads so like an autobiography. Finishes in the summer of 1933, when Eliot is 27. So much of the book is devoted to his obsession/passion/love for Sheila Knight. I came to understand, as he did at the end, that he had no other choice but to love her, even though she would come close to ruining his ambition and career. Snow has a way of deliniating a human character so that you see it to the core, and always contrasting that nature with the events and circumstances that surround it. How much choice do we really have? That is the point. Utterly gripping.

2 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars highly readable, interesting, April 17, 2002

By 

Joseph (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: TIME OF HOPE (Board book)

..."Time of Hope" has its Keating analogue do the narrating (it's in first person). Yes, we assume Dominique Francon considers herself superior to Keating, whereas Sheila waffles in this respect over Elliot, but here there is no Howard Roark to compare Elliot to. Yes, Keating is a plagiarist as well as a social climber, but he plagiarizes only Roark, and again here there is no Roark. Yes, Elliot calls Sheila "schizoid" and seeks to characterize her as a sort of Zelda Fitzgerald, but her actual behavior in the book has nothing whatsoever of the psychotic about it.

So what's the point? Beats me. This is a story of a man determined to rise from the lower class who does--to a point. He comes to decide that his rise is checked by the very thing that engendered it, his mother's ambition for him, but this is HIS reading; he may be wrong.