Storm Jameson

Storm Jameson (1891-1986) was born and grew up in the Yorkshire port of Whitby and became one of the most formidable and prolific British novelists of the twentieth century. A committed socialist and President of English PEN, Jameson helped rescue hundreds of writers fleeing fascism during the Second World War, while producing an extraordinary body of fiction and journalism. Once widely read and admired by contemporaries including Vera Brittain and E.M. Forster, her work has slipped from view, though its sharp wit and moral urgency is strikingly contemporary. The Moon is Making was inspired by, and set in, the town of Whitby. Told through the lens of the Wikker family, Jameson's searingly brilliant portrait of a fractured coastal community explores class division and emotional alienation in this rediscovered Northern novel from the 1930s. This brand new edition of a forgotten classic is introduced by Maxine Peake and illustrated by fellow Northerner, Alice Patullo. "The Moon Is Making is superior in technical skill and dramatic power. Miss Jameson is a writer worth watching." The New York Times, 1938

'When Storm Jameson set out to write a memoir... she found literary gold' VIVIAN GORNICK 'A fascinating life story, told with passion, clarity and a fierce intelligence' SARAH WATERS After decades of writing a novel every year, Storm Jameson found her form in the memoir. With stringent, witty self-scrutiny, she wrestled with the great events of her life: childhood struggles with her tempestuous mother; an early, unhappy marriage; repeated flights from settled domestic life; and a hard-won career in writing and politics. In a voice of electric immediacy, Jameson recounts the great shocks of the twentieth century, from losing her brother in the First World War to tirelessly helping refugees escape Nazi Germany during the Second. An arrestingly candid account of a rich life, this is one the great literary memoirs.

After a lifetime of writing a novel every year, Storm Jameson turned to memoir with the ambition 'to write without lying'. The result was an extraordinary reckoning with how she had lived: her childhood in Whitby, shadowed by a tempestuous, dissatisfied mother; an early, unhappy marriage and her decision to leave her young son behind while she worked in London; a tenaciously pursued literary career, always marked by the struggle to make money; and her lifelong political activism, including as the first female president of English PEN, helping refugees escape Nazi Germany. In a richly ironic, conversational voice, Jameson tells of the great figures she knew and events she witnessed: encounters with H.G. Wells and Rose Macaulay, and travels across Europe as fascism was rising. Throughout, she writes with electric candour and immediacy about her own motivations and psychology. Reissued with an introduction by Vivian Gornick, Journey from the North is one of the great literary memoirs: an uncommonly vivid account of a woman making a life for herself through the great shocks of the twentieth century.

Our story begins with the birth of Mary Hanskye in 1841 as the Industrial Revolution is changing the face of pastoral England. While still a child, Mary comes under the influence of her uncle, one of England's great shipbuilders. Soon she is a young woman involved in a loveless marriage arranged by a father she has hardly known. Though tragedy and disappointment follow her like shadows, The Lovely Ship is a story of the survival of a strong woman as we follow her through marriage, childbearing, family crisis, and her ultimate ascent to the throne of power in the great shipbuilding company.