The Sleep of Reason

C.P. Snow was born in Leicester in October 1905. In 1934, he began to publish scientific articles in Nature, and then The Spectator before becoming editor of the journal Discovery in 1937. He was also writing fiction during this period and in 1940, Strangers and Brothers was published. This was the first of eleven novels in the series. After the war, he became a civil service commissioner responsible for recruiting scientists to work for the government and also returned to writing, continuing the Strangers and Brothers novels.  The Light and the Dark was published in 1947, followed by Time of Hope in 1949, and perhaps the most famous and popular of them all, The Masters, in 1951. He planned to finish the cycle within five years, but the final novel, Last Things, wasn't published until 1970. He continued writing both fiction and nonfiction. In 1961, he became Rector of St. Andrews University and for ten years also wrote influential weekly reviews for the Financial Times.