Editing Raymond Postgate (section)

===Later career===

[[File:Stella Bowen, Raymond Postgate.jpg|thumb|Raymond Postgate, by [[Stella Bowen]], 1934. [[National Gallery of Victoria]], [[Melbourne]]]]
In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Postgate published biographies of [[John Wilkes]] and [[Robert Emmet]] and his first novel, ''[[No Epitaph]]'' (1932), and worked as an editor for the ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]''.<ref>Postgate & Postgate, pp. 140–164.</ref> In 1932, he visited the Soviet Union with a [[Fabian Society|Fabian]] delegation and contributed to the collection ''Twelve Studies in Soviet Russia''.<ref>Postgate & Postgate, pp. 171–174.</ref> Later in the 1930s, he co-authored with his brother-in-law G. D. H. Cole ''The Common People'', a social history of Britain from the mid-18th century.

Postgate edited the left-wing monthly ''Fact'' from 1937 to 1939, which featured a monograph on a different subject in each issue.<ref name="cp">Polsgrove, pp. 148–149.</ref> ''Fact'' published material by several well-known left-wing writers, including [[Ernest Hemingway]]'s reports on the [[Spanish Civil War]],<ref>Hanneman, p. 54.</ref> [[C. L. R. James]]'s 1938 "A History of Negro Revolt"<ref name="cp" /> and [[Storm Jameson]]'s essay "Documents".<ref>Brewster, p. 279.</ref> Postgate then edited the socialist weekly ''[[Tribune (magazine)|Tribune]]'' from early 1940 until the end of 1941.<ref>Postgate & Postgate, pp. 195–200.</ref> ''Tribune'' had previously been a pro-Soviet publication: however, the Soviet [[fellow traveller]]s at ''Tribune'' were either dismissed, or, in Postgate's words "left soon after in dislike of me".<ref>Jones, pp. 48–49.</ref>  Under Postgate's editorship, ''Tribune'' would express "critical support" for the [[Churchill war ministry|Churchill government]] and condemn the Communist Party.<ref>Calder, p. 79.</ref>

Postgate's [[anti-fascism]] led him to move away from his earlier pacifism. Postgate supported the [[Second World War]] and joined the [[Home Guard (United Kingdom)|Home Guard]] near his home in Finchley, London.<ref name="b&y">Brock and Young, p. 209.</ref><ref>Postgate & Postgate, pp. 213–215.</ref> In 1942, he obtained a post as a temporary civil servant in the wartime Board of Trade, concerned with the control of rationed supplies, and he remained in the Service for eight years.<ref>Postgate & Postgate, pp. 243–254.</ref> He continued his left-wing writings, and his question-and-answer pamphlet "Why You Should Be A Socialist", widely distributed among the returning military as the war ended, probably contributed significantly to the Labour Party's post-war landslide victory.

In the post-war period, Postgate continued to be critical of Russia under [[Stalin]], viewing its direction as an abandonment of socialist ideals.<ref>"...Lenin's Russia was not Stalin's: the present (1951) regime bears no more resemblance to what Lansbury saw than did the Empire of Bonaparte and Fouche to the France of the Convention, and far less than Cromwell's dictatorship did to the Commonwealth of 1649". Postgate, p. 202 (1951).</ref><ref>Blythe, p. 243.</ref>

Always interested in food and wine, after World War II, Postgate wrote a regular column on the poor state of British gastronomy for the pocket magazine ''[[Lilliput (magazine)|Lilliput]]''. In these, inspired by the example of a French travel guide called ''Le Club des Sans Club'', he invited readers to send him reports on eating places throughout the UK, which he would collate and publish. The response was overwhelming, and Postgate's notional  "Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Food", as he had called it, developed into the ''[[Good Food Guide]]'', becoming independent of ''Lilliput'' and its successor, ''The Leader''. The ''Guide''{{'}}s first issue came out in 1951; it accepted no advertisements and still relied on volunteers to visit and report on UK restaurants.<ref>Postgate & Postgate, pp. 265–269.</ref> As well as democratising ordinary eating out, Postgate sought to demystify the aura surrounding wine, and the flowery language widely used to describe wine flavours. His "A Plain Man's Guide To Wine" undoubtedly did much to make Britain more of a wine-drinking nation.<ref>Postgate & Postgate, pp. 274–279.</ref> In 1965, Postgate wrote an article in ''[[Holiday (magazine)|Holiday]]'' magazine in which he warned readers against [[Babycham]], which "looks like champagne and is served in champagne glasses [but] is made of pears". The company sued for libel, but Postgate was acquitted, and was awarded costs. His distinctly amateur writings on both food and wine, though highly influential in Britain in their time, did not endear him to professionals in the catering and wine trades, who avoided referring to him; however, his activities were much appreciated in France, where in 1951 he had been made the first British "[[Saint-Émilion|Peer of the Jurade of St Emilion]]".<ref>Postgate & Postgate, pp. 282–285.</ref>

He continued to work as a journalist, mainly on the Co-operative movement's Sunday paper, ''[[Reynolds' News]]'', and during the 1950s and 1960s published several historical works and a biography of his father-in-law entitled ''The Life of George Lansbury''.

Postgate wrote several mystery novels that drew on his socialist beliefs to set crime, detection and punishment in a broader social and economic context. His most famous novel is ''[[Verdict of Twelve]]'' (1940), his other novels include ''Somebody at the Door'' (1943) and ''The Ledger Is Kept'' (1953). (His sister and brother-in-law, the Coles, also became a successful mystery-writing duo.) After the death of [[H. G. Wells]], Postgate edited some revisions of the two-volume ''[[The Outline of History|Outline of History]]'' that Wells had first published in 1920.