This volume explores how religion influenced the works of mid-century writers and how authors used Christian ideas for social and political ends in the 1940s and 1950s.

• 1: Introduction


• 2: Bombed Churches


• 3: Saints and Miracles: The End of the Affair


• 4: Muriel Spark and Evil


• 5: Rebuilding the Church: Barbara Pym's Parochialism


• 6: Conclusion


• Works Cited

Allan Hepburn, author of Intrigue: Espionage and Culture and Enchanted Objects: Visual Art in Contemporary Fiction, is James McGill Professor of Twentieth-Century Literature at McGill University. He has edited four volumes of works by Elizabeth Bowen as well as a collection of essays about inheritance entitled Troubled Legacies, and another collection dealing with citizenship and human rights entitled Around 1945. He has published essays on collecting, belatedness, poverty, catastrophe, children, opera, and other topics. With Adam Piette and Lyndsey Stonebridge, he co-edits the Oxford Mid-Century Studies series.