Millions like us

by Jenny Hartley

Hartley, Jenny. Millions Like Us. British Women's Fiction of the Second World War. Oxford, Past Times, 1997. 23.2cm x 15.2cm. IX, 265 (14) pages. Original illustrated softcover. Very good condition with only minor signs of external wear. Includes for example the following Blitz and the Mothers of England/ From Class to Community in Fortress England/ Open House and Closed Doors/ Elizabeth Bowen/ Sylvia Townsend Warner/ E.M. Delafield/ Marghanita Laski/ Inez Holden/ Diana Murray Hill/ Monica Dickens/ Work and the Recalcitrant Factory/ Surveillance, Allegiance, Complicity/ Adverse Images of Women in War/ Anthony Powell/ Henry Green/ Evelyn Waugh/ Rosamon Lehmann/ Letters/ Stella Gibbons/ Elizabeth Taylor/ Jane Oliver/ Edith Pargeter/ Rose Macauley/ Mollie Panter-Downes/ The Indirect Face of War/ Daphne du Maurier/ Virginia Woolf/ War Wounds/ Monica Stirling/ Agatha Christie/ Betty Miller/ Storm Jameson/ Phyllis Bottome/ Clemence Dane/ Olivia Manning/ Nancy Mitford/ Margery Allingham etc. The dramatic changes in women's lives, the strange gains, inevitable strains and ineffaceable wounds, found their way into the fiction of the time, Jenny Hartley's lively account covers a wide range of women writers.

Genres: World War II, Nonfiction, Womens

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Jenny D. Hartley

Reviews

[Marie Saville · Rating 3 out of 5]

3'5 <3

[Candy Wood]

Rumer Godden’s A Fugue in Time is not mentioned at all in this book either, though it is certainly “British Women’s Fiction of the Second World War.” Jenny Hartley does discuss many other novels and short stories, usefully considering Virginia Woolf’s Between the Acts, Elizabeth Bowen’s The Heat of the Day, and Olivia Manning’s two trilogies along with many less familiar writers and titles. Although Hartley asserts that women’s wartime fiction focuses on a sense of “commitment and citizenship,” most of her examples do not illustrate the impulse toward propaganda that focus implies. Chapters devoted to topics like the Blitz, women at work, letters both real and fictional, and negative portrayals of women make for interesting reading in themselves while also expanding one’s list of titles to read.

[Margaret Conmey · Rating 3 out of 5]

The early chapters were good with some interesting aspects of some of the themes in Women’s wartime , home front writing.
The later chapters flagged and too many detailed excerpts from the books , including the endings! , even though no spoiler alerts.
Some of the books mentioned are available from Dean Street Press Middlebrow imprint.

[Bettie · Rating 2 out of 5]

R4 Monday

blurbs - Virginia Nicholson's evocative account of the Second World War is told through a multitude of individual women's experiences. As their stories unfold we discover how they loved, suffered, laughed, grieved and dared. Today, the conflict begins, and thirty-seven year old Frances Faviell learns to administer first-aid, and Lorna Bradey, serving as a nurse in France, witnesses the horror of Dunkirk first hand.

Virginia Nicholson's books include Among the Bohemians - Experiments in Living 1900-1939, and Singled Out - How Two Million Women Survived Without Men after the First World War, which was broadcast as a Book of the Week.

Read by Fenella Woolgar Abridged by Doreen Estall Produced by Elizabeth Allard.

[Lynn Mcdonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

This to me is a re-read book can;t get enough of ...or a book to keep on the nightstand...always. Engaging stories of women during WWII, where many of events jogged my memory bank making me long to remember more of my youth. I give this a 4 star rating, I hope you all enjoy this and much as I did!

[Bri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Background for research project: largely irrelevant to my purposes.