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David Howell, Raymond Williams: A Warrior's Tale. By Dai Smith., Twentieth Century British History, Volume 20, Issue 2, 2009, Pages 260–264, https://doi.org/10.1093/tcbh/hwp004
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When Raymond Williams completed The Long Revolution he noted a broader achievement. ‘With this book and Culture and Society and with my novel Border Country which I believe to have in its particular and quite different way, an essential relevance to the two general books, I have completed a body of work which I set myself to do ten years ago’ (The Long Revolution, p. 15). Dai Smith's biography terminates at this moment. He examines the complex making of this trinity. Williams thereby came from relative anonymity to a distinctive status as an iconic intellectual of the left albeit one whose complexities were frequently simplified by admirers.
The three books are typically afforded unequal status. Culture and Society with its excavation and nuanced analysis of critical British responses to industrialism is rightly viewed as crucial to the making of the public Williams. The Long Revolution was characterized by its author as more controversial and difficult. Perhaps less focused than its predecessor, its title encapsulated William's position. Border Country is not acknowledged as of the same status, but rather as a credible novel of social mobility exit and return based on autobiographical raw material. Usually regarded as William's most successful novel, it is customarily viewed as secondary to his major critical works.
