In the year 2000, two young editors, Nicholas Blincoe and Matt Thorne, published All Hail the New Puritans, an anthology of short stories which created an impact in the somewhat faded literary scene of Britain at the turn of the millennium.
The stories themselves, written by 15 young English writers (Scarlett Thomas, Alex Garland, Ben Richards, Nicholas Blincoe, Candida Clark, Daren King, Geoff Dyer, Matt Thorne, Anna Davis, Bo Fowler, Matthew Branton, Simon Lewis, Tony White, Toby Litt and Rebbecca Ray), together with the editors' manifesto, offered a new and stimulating approach to fiction, although the whole project had an outrageous reception by the literary establishment.
For the first time, a collection of essays addresses the importance of the New Puritan movement and provides guidelines to understand this generation of writers.