In short, Lucky Jim was one of the most influential novels of its age, a fact confirmed by Merritt Moseley, who has referred to it as one of the "key books of the English 1950s" (18-19). Though Amis never meant it to be a sociological document, it was fated to be "required reading on university Sociology courses" in the United States for a while (McDermott 20). By February 1956, only a little more than two years after its initial publication, Lucky Jim was already "into its sixteenth impression, a success story rarely equaled in contemporary fiction" (Wilson 68). The same source tells of attempts made at purchasing the radio adaptation and film rights of the novel by such well-known corporations as the BBC and famed directors as Alfred Hitchcock, Sidney Bernstein, and John and Roy Boulting before the year 1954 had come to an end (101-02). It was positively reviewed by such eminent scholars as Sean O'Faolain, Walter Allen, John Betjeman, Anthony Powell, and Edmund Fuller (Keulks 102). Of course, the general response was favorable. When Lucky Jim first appeared in 1954, it received varied responses from different classes of readers and critics.
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