title: Hemlock and After
text: # Hemlock and After
  
  Hemlock and After is a 1952 novel by British writer Angus Wilson; it was his first published novel after a series of short stories. The novel offers a candid portrayal of gay life in post-World War II England.
  
  ## Plot introduction
  
  Bernard Sands, a prominent writer who has been given financial aid to start a writer's colony at Vardon Hall, faces a failing marriage, attempts to come to grips with his homosexuality and lives next door to a procuress for paedophiles.
  
  ## Characters in Hemlock and After
  
  * Bernard Sands, the protagonist; a homosexual
  * Ella, Bernard's wife
  * Elizabeth, the Sandses' daughter
  * James, the Sandses' son
  * Charles, a friend of Bernard; a senior civil servant
  * Mrs Curry, the Sands's neighbour; a procuress for pedophiles
  * Hubert Rose, an architect and a pedophile
  
  ## References to other works
  
  * Angus Wilson said in an interview that the ending of the novel was Dickensian.
  
  ## Trivia
  
  The novel was written in only four weeks.
  
  