Kingsley Amis was born in south London in 1922 and was educated at the City of London School and St John's College, Oxford. At one time he was a university lecturer, a keen reader of science fiction and a jazz enthusiast. After the publication of Lucky Jim in 1954, which has become a modern classic, Kingsley Amis wrote over twenty novels, including The Alteration (1976), winner of the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, The Old Devils (1986), winner of the Booker Prize, and The Biographer's Moustache (1995), which was to be his last book. He was awarded a CBE in 1981 and received a knighthood in 1990. He died in 1995.