ABSTRACT The novelists Rebecca West, Winifred Holtby, Margaret Storm Jameson, and Naomi Mitchison developed an interest in politics during the 1930s as a response to the pervasive belief that their society was becoming increasingly... more
ABSTRACT The novelists Rebecca West, Winifred Holtby, Margaret Storm Jameson, and Naomi Mitchison developed an interest in politics during the 1930s as a response to the pervasive belief that their society was becoming increasingly uncivil and fragmented. The erosion of social ...
The novels of Storm Jameson and their depictions of Britain's relationship to Europe around the Second World War represent a crucial departure from the work of her contemporaries. As the first female President of English PEN, Jameson led... more
The novels of Storm Jameson and their depictions of Britain's relationship to Europe around the Second World War represent a crucial departure from the work of her contemporaries. As the first female President of English PEN, Jameson led her country's wartime literary community through turbulent times in history by focusing on European – rather than pointedly British – experiences of war.
War, Nation and Europe in the Novels of Storm Jameson is a timely critique situated within the historical and theoretical contexts so fundamental to understanding her work. Presenting previously unpublished archival material that documents her work as an ambassador for British writers during a time of national upheaval, Katherine Cooper reveals how the novelist's pacifism and evolving attitudes to war and peace were underpinned by her overarching vision for the post-war world. Drawing comparisons to the works of Virginia Woolf, Arthur Koestler, Graham Greene and others, this study shows how Jameson's novels gesture towards prevalent internationalist perspectives and reshapes how we view the literary history of the period.
In Europe to Let (1940), Margaret Storm Jameson – novelist, essayist and former pacifist –presents a Europe characterised by corruption and cruelty. Ranging from Cologne to Vienna, and Prague to Budapest, the novel critiques Europe’s... more
In Europe to Let (1940), Margaret Storm Jameson – novelist, essayist and former pacifist –presents a Europe characterised by corruption and cruelty. Ranging from Cologne to Vienna, and Prague to Budapest, the novel critiques Europe’s institutions, its increasingly problematic politics and, most importantly, its poverty-stricken cities as the cause of the crisis. Exploring the presentation in this novel of the problems inherent in Europe, this essay makes links between Jameson’s fears and preoccupations and those of her contemporaries in order to elucidate this novel’s contribution to discourses around the threat to Europe and the end of civilization at the beginning of World War Two. It demonstrates the anxieties embedded in the narrative around modernity, progress and in particular, an overblown and ruthless capitalism, to exact a reading of this novel as an indication of Jameson’s own hopes and fears for Europe during this time, as well as a testament to her relevance as a cultural commentator in her own right. It explores the representation of war in Europe to Let as a means of rehabilitation for the whole continent.
