Kingsley Amis Kingsley Amis Sir Kingsley William Amis, CBE (16 April 1922 – 22 October 1995) was an English novelist, poet, critic, and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, various short stories, radio and television scripts, along with works of social and literary criticism. According to his biographer, Zachary Leader, Amis was "the finest English comic novelist of the second half of the twentieth century." He is the father of British novelist Martin Amis. In 2008, "The Times" ranked Kingsley Amis ninth on their list of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945. Kingsley Amis
Kingsley Amis "What Became of Jane Austen? and Other Essays", in which Amis's wit and literary and social opinions were on display ranging over books such as Colin Wilson's "The Outsider" (panned), Iris Murdoch's début novel "Under the Net" (praised), or William Empson's "Milton's God" (inclined to agreement). Amis's opinions on books and people tended to appear (and often were) conservative, and yet, as the title essay of the collection shows, he was not merely reverent of "the classics" and of traditional morals, but more disposed to exercise his own rather independent judgement in all things. Amis became associated with Ian Fleming's