City of Spades

by Colin MacInnes

Published December 1957
London, 1957. Victoria Station is awash with boat trains discharging hopeful black immigrants into a cold and alien motherland. Liberal England is about to discover the legacy of Empire. And when Montgomery Pew, assistant welfare officer in the Colonial Department, meets Johnny Fortune, recently arrived from Lagos, the meeting of minds and races takes a surprising turn.


Colin MacInnes gives London back to the people who create its exciting sub-culture. Hilarious, anti-conventional, blisteringly honest and fully committed to younth and vitality, City of Spades is a unique and inspiring tribute to a country on the brink of change.

Absolute Beginners

by Colin MacInnes

Published 12 April 1970
In a world of smoky jazz clubs, coffee bars and hip hang-outs in the centre of London's emerging youth culture, the young and restless - the Absolute Beginners - were creating a world as different as they dared from the traditional image of England's green and pleasant land.