Lowry, Malcolm (Clarence Malcolm Lowry) (lou`rē), 1909–57, English novelist, b. New Brighton, Wirral. Lowry is widely recognized as an important writer who effectively articulated the spiritual desolation of the individual in the 20th cent. While still a student at Cambridge he wrote his first novel, Ultramarine (1933), later reworked and published in final form in 1962. His reputation is founded on his second novel, Under the Volcano (1947), a subtle and complex study of the dissolution of an Englishman's character. Set in Mexico, the novel is highly autobiographical. Like his hero Geoffrey Firmin, Lowry was an alcoholic whose addiction all but destroyed his family life and caused him to seek peace in such disparate locales as the United States, British Columbia, and Mexico. Lowry's other works, all published posthumously, include Selected Poems (1962); two volumes of short stories, Hear Us O Lord from Heaven Thy Dwelling Place (1961) and Dark As The Grave Wherein My Friend Is Laid (1968); and a novel, Lunar Caustic (1968).

Bibliography

See biography by G. Bowker (1995); studies by A. Smith, ed. (1978), R. K. Cross (1983), and T. Bareham (1989).

Lowry, (Clarence) Malcolm

(born July 28, 1909, Birkhead, Cheshire, Eng.—died June 27, 1957, Ripe, Sussex) British novelist, short-story writer, and poet. In his youth Lowry rebelled against his conventional upbringing and shipped to China as a cabin boy; he later lived in France, the U.S., Mexico, Canada, and Italy. His reputation rests on the novel Under the Volcano (1947), about the last desperate day of a dispirited alcoholic and former British consul in Mexico. Its juxtaposition of images of social decay and self-destructiveness was seen as a symbolic vision of Europe on the verge of World War II. Though critically praised, it received popular recognition only after Lowry's death at age 47, probably the result of alcoholism.