This text explores the strategies adopted by such authors as Greene, Salinger, Osborne, Baldwin and others in their attempt to cope with the spiritual vacuity-strategies including the emergence of the anti-hero and of literary existentialism. It also offers new insights into their work.

The scientific achievements of the modern world failed to impress the leading writers of the 20th century, leaving them instead profoundly disturbed by a sense of lost values and of the insignificance of the individual in a universe seemingly indifferent to human concerns. In "The Search for Selfhood in Modern Literature" Roston explores the strategies adopted by such mid-century authors as Greene, Salinger, Osborne, Baldwin and others in their attempt to cope with the spiritual vacuity-strategies including the emergence of the anti-hero and of literary existentialism and offer in the course of the investigation new insights into their work.

Acknowledgements - The Crisis of Identity - Commissar and Priest - Adolescent Rebels - Innovative Drama - Terminal - Select Bibliography - Index