Noise was first considered a public health issue in interwar Britain.

Noise was first considered a public health issue in interwar Britain. The proliferation of mechanical sounds, particularly the rumble of road and air traffic, caused anxiety about the health of the nation’s minds and bodies. The first significant UK noise abatement organisation, the Anti-Noise League, was founded by physician Thomas Horder. In the pages of interwar fiction, modernist writers engaged deeply with the shifting noisescapes around them. The unprecedented noise levels of the wars caused an attentiveness to sound and hearing. This was harnessed both metaphorically and structurally in the period’s literature.