Caudwell

Abstract

Christopher St. John Sprigg (Christopher Caudwell) was killed in action, forty years ago, on February 12th, 1937, on the Jarama River, covering with a machine-gun the retreat of his fellows in the British battalion of the International Brigade. He was then twenty-nine years old.* He was unknown to the intellectual world, even of the Left. All his significant works-Illusion and Reality, Studies in a Dying Culture, Further Studies, The Crisis of' Physics, and Romance and Realism-were published posthumously. All these works were written in two years, 1935-36, years in which his output included also poems and short stories (mainly unpublished), free-lance journalism, detective novels. He also joined, at the end of 1935, the Poplar branch of the Communist Party, and took an active part in branch life.