Synopsis The novel today stands around a humanistic concept of the world. The present book deals with the fiction of William Golding, John Wain, Kingsley Amis, Iris Murdoch, Doris Lessing and Angus Wilson who share an anxiety about man and his position in the world. The main focus in their novels is upon the consciousness of the characters who find themselves lonely in a hostile world. While the protagonists in their novels suffer, they make us aware of the essential human values of life—hope, honour and pride. While subscribing to the tenets of humanistic philosophy propounded by Camus and Sartre, the book makes a rich contribution to the corpus of literary criticism on the twentieth century British novel.