I saw the Guardian's obituary of Edward Upward this afternoon, written by Alan Walker, who complied the definitive bibliography of Upward's work. He died on Friday, aged 105. I first discovered his early work, Journey to the Border and the short stories of the 1930s, then the great anti-revisionist trilogy, The Spiral Ascent, which, I was shocked to learn from the obituary is out of print, and then his late works.
For other obituaries, see the Times, the Telegraph and the Morning Star
He was a great influence and inspiration. No writer has ever understood and interpreted dialectics as well as Upward.
I first read the Railway Accident in 1970 or thereabouts, in a grey covered Penguin classics edition, with Magritte's Time Transfixed on the cover. For some reason, The Rotten Elements was available in paperback when the other two volumes were not, so I read the middle volume of the Sprial Ascent before the others. This made sense: having understood the Sebrills' fight in the CPGB against the draft of the British Road to Socialism, it was then easy to read the back-story of Alan's political development in the 1930s, from apolitical teacher to anti-fascist and communist, and then to the final volume. I believe I then found the whole trilogy in Cambridge public library in a yellow covered edition.
I was sorry to see his library for sale by Maggs a few years ago. The well-illustrated catalogue survives (PDF): http://www.maggs.com/catalogues/pdfcatalogues/upward.pdf . I hope the books went to good homes.
Postscript: an interesting appreciation of Upward by Guillermo Parra may be read at Venepoetics and also in a magazine new to me, The Can.
