Brockway, Fenner
Entry updated 31 March 2025. Tagged: Author.
(1888-1988) UK author long active in socialist politics, long respected for his humane personality. He was imprisoned for his opposition to World War One; served as a member of the British Parliament 1929-1931 and 1950-1964; and was made a life peer in 1964. In his Scientific Romance, Purple Plague: A Tale of Love and Revolution (1935), a liner is quarantined at sea for a decade because of a mysterious plague; a Ship of Fools culture develops; a brave Scientist finds a cure for the deadly virus at the cost of his life (see Medicine); egalitarian reversals of the status quo ensue. Displeased with this tale, Brockway much later rewrote it, in the form of a Television play, as Red Liner: A Novel in TV Form (1962). [JC]
Archibald Fenner Brockway, Lord Brockway
born Calcutta, India: 1 November 1888
died Watford, Hertfordshire: 28 April 1988
works
- Purple Plague: A Tale of Love and Revolution (London: Sampson Low, 1935) [hb/uncredited]
- Red Liner: A Novel in TV Form (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1962) [complete recasting of the above: hb/]
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