Jennifer Birkett was born in the West Riding of Yorkshire and educated at the local grammar school and St Hilda's College, Oxford. She was Lecturer at Dundee University from 1971-88, Chair of French Studies at the University of Strathclyde, 1988-90, and since 1990 has held the established Chair of French Studies at Birmingham University. Her research derives from a number of specialist bases in French Studies, but has always been cross-disciplinary and interdisciplinary. She was active in the 1970s and 1980s in the AUT (Association of University Teachers), at local and national levels, and was Secretary and President of the Association of University Professors and Heads of French in the early 1990s. From its inception in the mid-1980s, she was committee member, Deputy Convenor, and (until 2002) Convenor of the Standing Committee of Arts and Social Sciences.

• Introduction


• Part I The Little Englander


• 1: A Yorkshire Childhood


• 2: The Student in the North


• 3: London 1912-1918


• 4: London 1919-24


• 5: London 1924-1928: Publishing, Passion and Politics


• 6: London 1924-1928: Publishing, Passion and Politics


• Part II Socialism and Internationalism: The English Road to Europe


• 7: London 1932-34: New People, New Politics


• 8: London 1932-36: Expanding Horizons


• 9: Fiction and Form


• 10: 1936 -8: Waking up to War


• 11: 1938-1940: Crossing the Rubicon


• Part III Europe at War


• 12: 1940: Vile Betrayals


• 13: 1941: Fighting with the French


• 14: 1941-1943: Holding On


• 15: Fortifying the Nation: Narrative, Memory and Culture


• 16: 1943-45: Struggling to the End


• Part IV Going Home


• 17: 1945-49: Clearing Up


• 18: 1949-53: A European Future


• 19: 1953-59: Understanding Exile


• 20: 1960-68: Letting Go and Settling Up


• 21: Final Recall


• Select Bibliography

The life-story of Margaret Storm Jameson (1891-1986), prolific novelist and political activist. In her time Jameson gained international recognition for her writing and for her wartime work as President of PEN, fighting for freedom and social justice while rescuing refugees from Nazi Europe and British internment camps.