Product Description

In the eighth in the Strangers and Brothers series Donald Howard, a young science Fellow is charged with scientific fraud and dismissed from his college. This novel, which became a successful West End play, describes a miscarriage of justice in the same Cambridge college which served as a setting for The Masters.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #980170 in Books
• Published on: 2008-09-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 360 pages

About the Author
C.P. Snow was born in Leicester, on 15 October 1905. He was educated from age 11 at Alderman Newton's School for boys where he excelled in most subjects, enjoying a reputation for an astounding memory. In 1923 he gained an external scholarship in science at London University, whilst working as a laboratory assistant at Newton's to gain the necessary practical experience, because Leicester University, as it was to become, had no chemistry or physics departments at that time. Having achieved a first class degree, followed by a Master of Science he won a studentship in 1928 which he used to research at the famous Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. Snow went on to become a Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge, in 1930 where he also served as a tutor, but his position became increasingly titular as he branched into other areas of activity. In 1934, he began to publish scientific articles in Nature, and then The Spectator before becoming editor of the journal Discovery in 1937. However, 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 and was later renamed 'George Passant' when 'Strangers and Brothers' was used to denote the series itself. Discovery became a casualty of the war, closing in 1940. However, by this time Snow was already involved with the Royal Society, who had organised a group to specifically use British scientific talent operating under the auspices of the Ministry of Labour. He served as the Ministry's technical director from 1940 to 1944. After the war, Snow became a civil service commissioner responsible for recruiting scientists to work for the government. He also returned to writing, continuing the Strangers and Brothers series of 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 married the novelist Pamela Hansford Johnson in 1950 and they had one son, Philip, in 1952. Snow was knighted in 1957 and became a life peer in 1964, taking the title Baron Snow of the City Leicester. He also joined Harold Wilson's first government as Parliamentary Secretary to the new Minister of Technology. When the department ceased to exist in 1966 he became a vociferous back-bencher in the House of Lords. After finishing the Strang

Customer Reviews

Snakes and Ladders of Power
Lewis Eliot is the narrator of the novels in the STRANGERS AND BROTHERS series. C.P. Snow, among other things, was a social historian. Tom Orbell is younger than Lewis. He is a Fellow at the Cambridge College to which Lewis's brother Martin is attached. It is 1953. Lewis is introduced by Tom to Laura Howard. One of the younger Fellows has gotten caught in a case of scientific fraud. The man concerned is Laura's husband Donald. Laura wants Tom to reopen the case. Tom casts Lewis as a sort of elder statesman. He may be able to talk with his friends at the college. Laura decides that Lewis is no good at all.

At the college, visiting his brother, Lewis sees Francis Getliffe. Lewis learns that Howard had been a moderately well-known fellow-traveler. Howard has damaged his case with college personnel by blaming his elderly advisor for the lapse. The man, very distinguished, has died recently.

On Christmas night Martin and Lewis eat at the college to spare their wives the trouble of preparing another meal. Lewis is surprised to learn there that one of the Fellows, Skeffington, believes that Howard's case merits re-opening because a page received in the last batch of notebooks of the deceased scientist may support Howard's explanation of the discrepancy. When Lewis approaches Francis Getliffe to support re-opening the case, he discovers that Francis is inclined, with no particular urging of Lewis, to recommend that the matter be reconsidered. Getliffe's position in the matter is bound to sway others.

In the course of taking testimony it is inevitable that Nightingale, the Bursar, be suspected of secreting a crucial photograph, (the notebook in question passed through his hands first). Fact-finding does not end neatly, but rough justice prevails.

Snow's careful recital of the fictitious controversy and its solution is of great interest. The author's realistic appraisal of people and people's motives is called forth in this excellent work.

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Well, he's back on track here, with a well-paced and interesting story set in Cambridge, as was "The Masters". Snow seems so at home there and writes marvelously of the Cambridge Fellows, most of whom appeared in the earlier book. I thought it a good choice to make Howard, the man accused of faking a photograph to prove his science, such a thoroughly unlikeable person, and thereby showing us a purer justice than if he had been someone whose company we enjoyed. The scales of Justice are blind, or should be so. I love reading about the ways and intrigues of Cambridge.