[1] One of his better-known works, it combines nostalgia for the northern England that existed before the First World War with an optimism inspired by the conclusion of the Second.

The book tells the story of a contemporary English screenwriter, Gregory Dawson, who goes to a seaside hotel in Cornwall to finish a screenplay.

An accidental meeting with two people from his distant past prompts him to explore his memories of his youth in 'Bruddersford' (a fictional town conflating Bradford and Huddersfield) between October 1912 and June 1914.

In the hotel's restaurant Dawson is condescending to the musicians, who attempt to impress him by playing the slow movement of Schubert's B flat trio.

After the concert he is delighted to find himself accepted without question as one of their social circle: the Alington children, Joan, Eva, Bridget, Oliver and David, and their friends Ben Kerry and Jock Barniston.

Gregory enjoys Christmas 1912, which includes many visits, and a trip to the pantomime Cinderella; in May 1913, Greg accompanies the Alingtons to the village of Bulsden, on the edge of Broadstone Moor, for a picnic and a game of cricket.

In late summer 1913, Nixey takes Dawson out to the Market Grill and the Imperial Music Hall, and asks him about Ackworth and Croxton.

In June, the Alingtons go for a picnic at Pikeley Scar, a limestone cliff, in the company of Dawson, Jock Barniston, and the 10-year-old Laura Blackshaw.

The day after the funeral, Mr Alington collapses at work, and a fortnight later the Nixeys call at his house, where they are confronted by Bridget, who blames them for what has happened.

Back at the Royal Ocean Hotel, Dawson talks to Malcolm Nixey, who is leaving the next day, and perplexes him by demanding to know what he has "got out of it all", that is, out of the "successful" life he has lived.

Having done with reminiscing, Dawson finishes the screenplay, and while chatting with the restaurant trio he hears them mention a fellow musician named Sheila Connally.

At a party at Claridges, Dawson encounters Lord Harndean again, who asks him to phone someone called Mrs Childs, who is involved with a film-making youth group.

W. J. Hurlow, writing for The Ottawa Citizen, felt that the book was a vast improvement on Priestley's wartime work, such as Three Men in New Suits and Daylight on Saturday.

[1] Similarly, David M. White, of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, thought that Bright Day was "a work of art that show[ed] Priestley at his best.