Room at the Top (novel) Room at the Top (novel) Room at the Top is a novel by John Braine, first published in the United Kingdom by Eyre & Spottiswoode in 1957, about the rise of an ambitious young man of humble origin, and the socio-economic struggles undergone in realising his social ambitions in post-war Britain. A film adaptation was made in 1959, followed in 2012 by a TV film. John Minton's cover art from the first edition was restored and used on the new edition by Valancourt Books in 2013. Joe Lampton, demobilised at the end of the Second World War, is starting in
John Hampson (novelist) John Hampson (novelist) John Frederick Norman Hampson Simpson (26 March 1901 – 26 December 1955), who wrote as John Hampson, was an English novelist. Best known for his 1931 novel "Saturday Night at the Greyhound" – an unexpected success for the Hogarth Press – he was a member of the Birmingham Group of working class authors which included Walter Allen, Leslie Halward, Walter Brierley and Peter Chamberlain. His elder brother was the motorcycle racer, Jimmy Simpson (James Hampson-Simpson). Hampson was born in Handsworth in Birmingham. Unable to complete his formal education due to ill health, Hampson worked in a munitions