Williams, Raymond (Henry) (1921–1988)

Welsh literary critic and novelist. His Culture and Society 1780–1950 1958 explores the development of culture in England since the Industrial Revolution. Other works include the novel trilogy Border Country 1960, Second Generation 1964, and The Fight for Manod 1979; among critical works are The Long Revolution 1961 and The Country and the City 1973.

Williams was born in Pandy, Gwent, and studied at Cambridge. After completing his wartime military service, he was staff tutor in literature at the Oxford University Delegacy for Extra-Mural Studies; in 1961 he became a fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge. He was professor of drama 1974–83.

He maintained that culture is not the possession of an intellectual or artistic minority, but the outgrowth and inheritance of the social experience of an entire nation. In all his work he stressed the importance of the social context of literature.