David Lodge was one of England’s pre-eminent novelist-critics. His work in either sphere – fiction and literary criticism – would be sufficient to earn him recognition and esteem. His combination of the two over a long, prolific and impressive career both demonstrated an admirable versatility and, somewhat more subtly, permitted the cross-fertilisation of fiction by literary theory and criticism. With his long-time friend and sometime collaborator, Malcolm Bradbury, Lodge helped to create the category of novelist-don (it is much more uncommon in Britain than in the US for creative writers to be university professors as well) and the contemporary genre of campus fiction. It is for his academic novels – perhaps most notably Changing Places, Small World and Nice Work, the so-called Rummidge trilogy – that Lodge is best known, but his body of fictional...
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Citation: Moseley, Merritt. "David Lodge". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 17 July 2001; last revised 16 January 2025. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2773, accessed 06 January 2026.]