British author Edward (Falaise) Upward died 13 February 2009. Born in Romford, England, on 9 September 1903, he was believed to be Britain’s oldest living author. As students, Upward and writer Christopher Isherwood created the surreal, imaginary village of Mortmere, in which they set strange stories such as “The Leviathan of the Urinals.” And with Isherwood, W.H. Auden, and Stephen Spender, he shaped English literature in the 1930s.
He was also a teacher, and active in the Communist Party in England (until 1948, when he and his wife left the party because it was no longer revolutionary). He campaigned for nuclear disarmament, and won the Royal Society of Literature’s Benson Medal in 2005.
His literary output was not as voluminous as one might imagine, but he did write broadly, publishing novels, short stories, and poetry. Most recently, British publisher Enitharmon Press has been releasing his works; his Mortmere stories were collected in 1994.
Upward’s legacy led to obituaries in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Telegraph, and more. His Wikipedia entry is on this page.