R. C. Hutchinson (Ray Coryton Hutchinson) Biography

English novelist, born in London, educated at Oriel College, Oxford. A fastidious craftsman, he wrote seventeen novels in all, but is best known for Testament (1938), his epic work about the Russian Revolution. Though conservative in outlook, his imaginative sympathy brought home to many readers the great significance, particularly their spiritual implications, of revolutionary changes in the Soviet Union. Early novels include The Unforgotten Prisoner (1933), set in Weimar Germany; Shining Scabbard (1936); The Fire and the Wood (1940), which focuses on Dr Josef Zepichmann, a young idealist straight from medical school facing persecution from the Nazis; and Elephant & Castle (1949). Later novels include The Stepmother (1955); A Child Possessed (1964), which deals sympathetically with a mentally defective child; and Rising (1976), his last novel, which is set in a Latin American country and, like Testament, deals with revolutionary politics from a conservative viewpoint.