Arnold Kettle

Arnold Charles Kettle (17 March 1916 – 24 December 1986) was a British Marxist literary critic, most noted for his authorship of the two-volume work An Introduction to the English Novel (1951).

Kettle was born in Ealing, London, and was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood and Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he was a Cambridge Apostle. Influenced by F. R. Leavis in his academic writings, he was a man of the left politically and joined the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1936, remaining a member for the rest of his life. He was the Open University’s first professor of literature and worked there until his retirement in 1981.

His son is the journalist Martin Kettle.