SIMON RAVEN
Name: Simon Arthur Noal Raven
Born: 28 December 1927
Died: 12 May 2001
Simon Arthur Noal Raven (1927-2001), was an English novelist, essayist,
dramatist, raconteur and bon vivant who, in a writing career of forty years,
caused controversy, amusement and offence. His obituary in 'The Guardian' noted
that, "he combined elements of Flashman, Waugh's Captain Grimes and the Earl of
Rochester", and that he reminded Noel Annan, his Cambridge tutor, of the young
Guy Burgess.
Among the many things said about him, perhaps the most quoted was that he had "the
mind of a cad and the pen of an angel". E W Swanton called Raven's cricket
memoir Shadows in the Grass "the filthiest cricket book ever written"[3]. He has
also been called "cynical" and "cold-blooded", his characters "guaranteed to
behave badly under pressure; most of them are vile without any pressure at all".
His unashamed credo was "a robust eighteenth-century paganism....allied to
a deep contempt for the egalitarian code of post-war England"
Name: Simon Arthur Noal Raven
Born: 28 December 1927
Died: 12 May 2001
Simon Arthur Noal Raven (1927-2001), was an English novelist, essayist,
dramatist, raconteur and bon vivant who, in a writing career of forty years,
caused controversy, amusement and offence. His obituary in 'The Guardian' noted
that, "he combined elements of Flashman, Waugh's Captain Grimes and the Earl of
Rochester", and that he reminded Noel Annan, his Cambridge tutor, of the young
Guy Burgess.
Among the many things said about him, perhaps the most quoted was that he had "the
mind of a cad and the pen of an angel". E W Swanton called Raven's cricket
memoir Shadows in the Grass "the filthiest cricket book ever written"[3]. He has
also been called "cynical" and "cold-blooded", his characters "guaranteed to
behave badly under pressure; most of them are vile without any pressure at all".
His unashamed credo was "a robust eighteenth-century paganism....allied to
a deep contempt for the egalitarian code of post-war England"