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John Boynton Priestley, OM (; 13 September 1894 – 14 August 1984), was an English author, novelist, playwright, scriptwriter, social commentator, man of letters and broadcaster, whose career straddled the 20th Century. His Yorkshire background is reflected in much of his fiction, notably in ''The Good Companions'' (1929), which first brought him to wide public notice. Many of his plays are structured around a time slip, and he went on to develop a new theory of time, with different dimensions that link past, present and future. In 1940, he broadcast a series of short propaganda talks that were credited with saving civilian morale during the Battle of Britain. His left-wing beliefs brought him into conflict with the government, but influenced the birth of the Welfare State. ==Early years== Priestley was born at 34 Mannheim Road, Manningham, which he described as an "extremely respectable" suburb of Bradford. His father was a headmaster. His mother died when he was just two years old and his father remarried four years later.〔Lincoln Konkle, ''J. B. Priestley'', in British Playwrights, 1880–1956: A Research and Production Sourcebook, by William W. Demastes, Katherine E. Kelly; Greenwood Press, 1996〕 Priestley was educated at Belle Vue Grammar School, which he left at sixteen to work as a junior clerk at Helm & Co., a wool firm in the Swan Arcade. During his years at Helm & Co. (1910–1914), he started writing at night and had articles published in local and London newspapers. He was to draw on memories of Bradford in many of the works he wrote after he had moved south, including ''Bright Day'' and ''When We Are Married''. As an old man he deplored the destruction by developers of Victorian buildings in Bradford such as the Swan Arcade, where he had his first job. Priestley served in the army during the First World War, volunteering to join the 10th Battalion, the Duke of Wellington's Regiment on 7 September 1914, and being posted to France as a Lance-Corporal on 26 August 1915. He was badly wounded in June 1916, when he was buried alive by a trench-mortar. He spent many months in military hospitals and convalescent establishments, and on 26 January 1918 was commissioned as an officer in the Devonshire Regiment, and posted back to France late summer 1918. As he describes in his autobiography, ''Margin Released'', he suffered from the effects of poison gas, and then supervised German prisoners of war, before being demobilized in early 1919. After his military service Priestley received a university education at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. By the age of 30 he had established a reputation as an essayist and critic. His novel ''Benighted'' (1927) was adapted into the James Whale film ''The Old Dark House'' (1932); the novel has been published under the film's name in the United States. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「J. B. Priestley」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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