Priestley was educated at Cambridge University, and by the age of thirty had established a reputation as a humorous writer and critic. His first major success came with a novel, The Good Companions (1929), but he became better known as a dramatist. Without doubt, his best-known play is An Inspector Calls (1946). His novel Angel Pavement (1930) further established him as a successful popular novelist, but his plays are more varied in tone, several being influenced by Brown's theory of time, which plays a part in the plots of Dangerous Corner (1932) and Time and the Conways (1937). He married the archaeologist Jacquetta Hawkes, with whom he co-wrote some minor works.