The Citadel (novel)
First edition
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| Author | A. J. Cronin |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Published | 1937 Gollancz (UK) Little, Brown (US) |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 446 pp. (UK hardcover) |
| ISBN | |
The Citadel is a novel by A. J. Cronin, first published in 1937, which was groundbreaking with its treatment of the contentious theme of medical ethics. It has been credited with laying the foundation in Great Britain for the introduction of the NHS a decade later. In the United States, it won the National Book Award for 1937 novels, voted by members of the American Booksellers Association.
For his fifth book, Dr. Cronin drew on his experiences practising medicine in the coal mining communities of the South Wales Valleys, as he had for The Stars Look Down two years earlier. Specifically, he had researched and reported on the correlation between coal dust inhalation and lung disease in the town of Tredegar. He had also worked as a doctor for the Tredegar Medical Aid Society at the Cottage Hospital, which served as the model for the National Health Service.
Cronin once stated in an interview, "I have written in The Citadel all I feel about the medical profession, its injustices, its hide-bound unscientific stubbornness, its humbug ... The horrors and inequities detailed in the story I have personally witnessed. This is not an attack against individuals, but against a system."
In October 1924, Andrew Manson, an idealistic, newly qualified doctor, arrives from Scotland to work as assistant to Doctor Page in the small (fictitious) Welsh mining town of Drineffy (Blaenelly is the name given in some adaptations). He quickly realises that Page is invalid and that he has to do all the work for a meagre wage. Shocked by the unsanitary conditions he finds, he works to improve matters and receives the support of Dr Philip Denny, a cynical semi-alcoholic who has, Manson finds in due course, taken a post as an assistant doctor after having fallen from grace as a surgeon. Resigning, he obtains a post as assistant in a miners' medical aid scheme in 'Aberalaw', a neighbouring coal mining town in the South Wales coalfield. On the strength of this job, he marries Christine Barlow, a junior school teacher.
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