Description:The scientific achievements of the modern world failed to impress the leading writers of this 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. Murray 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 emptiness--of the anti-hero and literary existentialism--and offer in the course of the investigation new insights into their work.