Simon Raven

Simon Raven – Life, Career, and (Some) Notable Lines

Explore the life and works of Simon Raven: English novelist, playwright, screenwriter, and essayist. Understand his provocative style, his legacy, and a sampling of his best quotes.

Introduction

Simon Arthur Noël Raven (28 December 1927 – 12 May 2001) was a distinctive and controversial English writer whose output spanned novels, essays, drama, and television. Although never a mass-market literary figure, Raven developed a devoted readership and critics often praised his sharp wit, satirical edge, and fearless explorations of morality, decadence, and social mores. His work endures as a provocative reflection of postwar British society, especially the tensions within the upper and upper-middle classes.

Early Life and Family

Simon Raven was born on 28 December 1927, likely in London (some sources say Virginia Water, Surrey) .

Raven attended Cordwalles preparatory school, then won a scholarship to the prestigious Charterhouse School. However, in 1945 he was expelled from Charterhouse for homosexual conduct—an event that would foreshadow the transgressive elements and candidness of much of his later writing.

Youth, National Service, and Education

After school, Raven served his national service in the British Army. He was commissioned and served in posts including India, and later in the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry and with the Royal Artillery

After his time in uniform, Raven studied Classics at King’s College, Cambridge, matriculating around 1948.

He was briefly married to Susan Kilner in 1951, and their son Adam was born in 1952. The marriage ended in divorce in 1957.

Career and Major Works

The Path to Writing

Raven initially tried to support himself via reviews and journalism (for example, The Listener) and began writing fiction, though with early setbacks (some works were too legally risky to publish) Anthony Blond discovered Raven, publishing his first novel The Feathers of Death in 1959. Blond made a unique arrangement: he provided Raven with a modest stipend, on condition that Raven stay outside London and dedicate himself to writing. This patronage lasted for decades.

This financial stability enabled Raven to be highly prolific, writing novels, essays, short stories, stage plays, television scripts, adaptations, and polemical pieces.

Novels: Alms for Oblivion, The First-Born of Egypt, and more

Raven’s most celebrated fictional project is his ten-novel cycle Alms for Oblivion, covering a span of British society from the end of World War II through the early 1970s, with recurring characters and shifts in tone from satire to metaphysical reflection. The sequence includes:

• The Rich Pay Late (1964)

• Friends in Low Places (1965)

• The Sabre Squadron (1966)

• Fielding Gray (1967)

• The Judas Boy (1968)

• Places Where They Sing (1970)

• Sound the Retreat (1971)

• Come Like Shadows (1972)

• Bring Forth the Body (1974)

• The Survivors (1976)

After Alms for Oblivion, Raven wrote the First-Born of Egypt series, which explores darker, often supernatural themes, sometimes killing off characters from the earlier cycle in increasingly dramatic fashion.

His standalone novels include Doctors Wear Scarlet, The Feathers of Death, Brother Cain, Close of Play, The Roses of Picardie, and September Castle among others.

Drama, Television, Screenwriting

Raven’s work reached broader audiences through his adaptation and scriptwriting for television. Notably, he contributed to:

• The Pallisers (1974), adapted from Trollope’s series

• Edward & Mrs. Simpson (1978), dramatizing the abdication crisis of Edward VIII

• Love in a Cold Climate (1980)

• Point Counter Point (1968), among other TV adaptations

He also wrote numerous plays, TV scripts, and adaptations of classic works.

Themes, Style & Reputation

Simon Raven’s writing is marked by:

• Satire of the elite: He frequently skewered the manners, hypocrisies, and moral ambiguities of upper-class English society in the mid-20th century.

• Candor and transgression: Raven did not shy away from taboo, especially around sexuality, vice, decadence, and personal failure.

• Pagan, aristocratic sensibility: He described himself as a “robust eighteenth-century pagan” with contempt for the post-war egalitarian ethic.

• Supernatural and Gothic elements: In his later works—especially The Roses of Picardie, September Castle, and parts of the First-Born of Egypt sequence—he wove in occult and ghostly motifs.

• Sharp, economical prose: Raven often said his writing style was influenced by military training in clarity, brevity, and precision.

• Defiant elitism: He once remarked he wrote for “a small audience … people like myself, who are well-educated, worldly, skeptical and snobbish.”

Critics often compare him to Evelyn Waugh, Anthony Powell, or Lawrence Durrell, but note his darker, more cynical edge.

His characters are notorious for behaving badly—often without justification—and for being morally compromised under pressure (if not always under ease).

In his obituary, The Guardian suggested he had “the mind of a cad and the pen of an angel.”

Legacy and Influence

Though Simon Raven never achieved mainstream literary fame, his influence persists:

• Among a niche readership, Raven is celebrated as a “cult” or “writer’s writer,” especially admired for his fearlessness of subject, his unflinching moral perspective, and his stylistic precision.

• His Alms for Oblivion sequence is often regarded as his most significant achievement, a sweeping chronicle of postwar British society with enduring literary interest.

• His television work brought his sensibility to a broader public and helped sustain his reputation beyond the novel readership.

• His autobiography Shadows on the Grass (1982) and his memoirs The Old School (1986) and Birds of Ill-Omen (1989) offer insight into his personality, life, and controversies.

In his later years, Raven lived at the London Charterhouse (an almshouse associated with his old school) and appeared in a 1997 South Bank Show retrospective. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1993.

He died in London on 12 May 2001 at age 73, after a series of strokes.

Selected Quotes

Simon Raven is less quoted than many literary figures, but here are a few lines and aphorisms attributed to him or recorded about him:

1. “I’ve always written for a small audience consisting of people like myself, who are well-educated, worldly, skeptical and snobbish.”

2. In reference to his own approach: “If no great book was ever written in this attitude of mind, it has nevertheless accounted for many excellent productions of the second class.” — as reported in a tribute after his death

3. About his characters: “Characters guaranteed to behave badly under pressure; most of them are vile without any pressure at all.” (critical commentary on his style)

4. In his unapologetic self-stance: “He had ‘the mind of a cad and the pen of an angel’.” (often quoted in obituaries)

5. On public reaction: His cricket memoir Shadows on the Grass was called by E. W. Swanton “the filthiest cricket book ever written” — a comment Raven reportedly asked to use on its jacket.

Lessons from Simon Raven

From Raven’s life and work, readers and writers may draw several takeaways:

• Be fearless in subject matter. Raven carved a niche by refusing taboo or comfortable morality.

• Know your audience—even if it's small. He accepted that his appeal would be specialized, and wrote for that audience.

• Consistency and volume matter. Patronage and discipline allowed him to sustain a long, prolific career.

• Style is a tool — his clear, economical prose and satirical lens made strong impressions without florid excess.

• Life and writing intertwine. Raven’s own personality—with its excesses, contradictions, and provocations—became part of his literary brand.

• Cult legacy can outlast fame. Even without mass success, he remains influential among those who seek writing that probes danger, conflict, and moral ambiguity.

Conclusion

Simon Raven remains a provocative, at times polarizing, figure in 20th-century British letters. His work is not for everyone, but for readers drawn to audacity, moral complexity, and narrative sharpness, Raven offers a rich, unsettling territory to explore.