Walter Ernest Allen was an English literary critic and novelist. He is best known for his classic study The English Novel: a Short Critical History (1954).

He was born in Aston

Aston

Aston is an area of the City of Birmingham, in the West Midlands of England. Lying to the north-east of the Birmingham city centre, Aston constitutes an electoral ward within the council constituency of Ladywood.-History:...

, Birmingham; he drew on his working-class roots for All in a Lifetime (1959), generally considered his best novel. He was educated at King Edward's Grammar School

King Edward VI Aston

King Edward VI Aston School is a selective, all-boys' grammar school and specialist Sports College. The school, designed by Birmingham architect J.A. Chatwin, opened in 1883 and is still located on its original site, in the Aston area of Birmingham, England....

 and the University of Birmingham

University of Birmingham

The University of Birmingham is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Birmingham Medical School and Mason Science College . Birmingham was the first Redbrick university to gain a charter and thus...

, graduating in 1932 — his friends at that period included Henry Reed and Louis MacNeice

Louis MacNeice

Frederick Louis MacNeice CBE was an Irish poet and playwright. He was part of the generation of "thirties poets" which included W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender and Cecil Day-Lewis; nicknamed "MacSpaunday" as a group — a name invented by Roy Campbell, in his Talking Bronco...

.

He taught and took numerous temporary academic positions; he also worked in journalism, being at one time literary editor of the New Statesman

New Statesman

New Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....

; and was a broadcaster. In 1967 he took a position as Professor of English Studies at the University of Ulster

University of Ulster

The University of Ulster is a multi-campus, co-educational university located in Northern Ireland. It is the largest single university in Ireland, discounting the federal National University of Ireland...

.

He was known as an editor of George Gissing

George Gissing

George Robert Gissing was an English novelist who published twenty-three novels between 1880 and 1903. From his early naturalistic works, he developed into one of the most accomplished realists of the late-Victorian era.-Early life:...

. He wrote some poetry, which appeared in John Lehmann

John Lehmann

Rudolf John Frederick Lehmann was an English poet and man of letters, and one of the foremost literary editors of the twentieth century, founding the periodicals New Writing and The London Magazine.The fourth child of journalist Rudolph Lehmann, and brother of Helen Lehmann, novelist Rosamond...

's publications in the 1940s. He left much writing in manuscript. He died in London.

Works

• Innocence is Drowned (1938) novel
• Blind Man's Ditch (1939) novel
• Living Space (1940) novel
• The Black Country (1946) novel
• Rogue Elephant (1946) novel
• Arnold Bennett (1948) criticism
• Writers on Writing (1948) editor
• Reading a Novel (1949)
• Dead Man Over All (1950) novel
• Joyce Cary (1953) criticism
• The English Novel; a Short Critical History (1954)
• The Novel Today (1955)
• Six Great Novelists (1955)
• All in a Lifetime (1959) novel
• George Eliot (1964) criticism
• Tradition and Dream: The English and American Novel from the Twenties to Our Time (1964)
• As I Walked Down New Grub Street (1981) autobiography
• The Short Story in English (1981)
• Get Out Early (1986)
• Accosting Profiles (1989)