Stanley Middleton was a popular teacher and prize-winning novelist from Nottingham. He was born in Bulwell in 1919 and lived in the city his whole life, moving once from his birthplace to Sherwood. Middleton published his first novel in 1958, and was the author of 44 novels in a writing career spanning 50 years. His novel Holiday won the Booker Prize in 1974, and other acclaimed works of his include Harris’s Requiem (1960) and Married Past Redemption (1993). He was tied to the city, with his novels being regularly set in ‘Beechnall’ – a fictional version of Nottingham.
This guest lecture marks the centenary of Middleton’s birth, and will be presented by Professor Philip Davis, who was a student of Stanley Middleton during his tenure as an English teacher at High Pavement Grammar School. Stanley and Margaret Middleton also visited Philip during his studies at Cambridge University. Davis became Middleton’s literary executor, entrusted with Middleton’s unpublished papers after his death in 2009. Davis collected Middleton’s unpublished poetry to compose Stanley’s Selected Poems and bestowed a charming introduction to the collection, too. His lecture will explore the relationship between Middleton’s life and his work.
‘Nottingham’s Own: Stanley Middleton, the man and the writing’ will take place on 6 November 2019, at 6:30-7:45pm in A30 Arts Centre Lecture Theatre, Lakeside Arts. Wine and soft drinks will be available from 6pm. Reserve your free place here: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/e…