Priestley, J(ohn) B(oynton) (1894–1984), English dramatist, novelist, and critic. His first play, a dramatization of his own best-selling novel
The Good Companions (London and NY, 1931) undertaken in collaboration with Edward
Knoblock, was followed by
Dangerous Corner (London and NY, 1932), an ingenious play in which a chance remark at a dinner party produces a chain of revelations which lead eventually to a suicide; but the play then returns to its beginnings and the words pass unnoticed. After
Laburnum Grove (1933; NY, 1935) and
Eden End (1934; NY, 1935), the latter mingling gentle melancholy and rich humour in a way Priestley never again achieved, came two excellent plays influenced by Dunne's
An Experiment with Time,
Time and the Conways and
I Have Been Here Before (both 1937; NY, 1938), the former being particularly effective, with its second act set 20 years later than the first and third. These ‘time-plays’ were followed by a rollicking farce,
When We Are Married (1938; NY, 1939), which concerns three Yorkshire couples who find after many years that their marriages are not legal. In his next two plays,
Music At Night (also 1938) and
Johnson over Jordan (1939), in which Ralph
Richardson gave a fine performance, Priestley sought to give modern drama a new depth, but the technical means he employed were not to the taste of the public, though
They Came to a City (1943), an earnest left-wing political tract, proved surprisingly popular in the West End. Another play in the style of
Dangerous Corner,
An Inspector Calls (1946; NY, 1947), in which Richardson again appeared, was followed in 1947 (NY, 1948) by one of Priestley's best plays,
The Linden Tree, in which Lewis
Casson and Sybil
Thorndike played an academic and his wife confronted at a family reunion by the contrasting ideologies of their three adult children. His later plays, such as
Home is Tomorrow (1948) and
Summer Day's Dream (1949), proved less memorable.
Dragon's Mouth (1952; NY, 1955) and
The White Countess (1954) were written in collaboration with his third wife, the archaeologist Jacquetta Hawkes, while his last plays included
Mr Kettle and Mrs Moon (1955),
The Glass Cage (1957), and a dramatization of Iris Murdoch's novel
A Severed Head (1963; NY, 1964) in collaboration with the author. He was the first President of the
International Theatre Institute.