Authors: Virginia Nicholson
Broad, Richard and Suzie Fleming, eds.,
Nella Last’s War: A Mother’s Diary 1939–45,
Falling Wall Press, Bristol, 1981.
Bruley, Sue, ed.,
Working for Victory: A Diary of Life in a Second World War Factory
, Sutton Publishing, Stroud, 2001.
Calder, Jenni,
The Nine Lives of Naomi Mitchison
, Virago, London, 1997.
Campbell-Preston, Frances,
The Rich Spoils of Time
, The Dovecote Press, Wimborne Minster, 2006.
Cartland, Barbara,
The Years of Opportunity 1939–1945
, Hutchinson and Co., London, 1948.
Clayton, Aileen,
The Enemy Is Listening: The Story of the Y Service
, Hutchinson and Co., London, 1980.
Cloud, Henry,
Barbara Cartland: Crusader in Pink,
Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1979.
Cooper, Diana,
Trumpets from the Steep
, Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1960.
Day-Lewis, Tamasin, ed.,
Last Letters Home,
Macmillan, London, 1995.
Donnelly, Peter, ed.,
Mrs Milburn’s Diaries: An Englishwoman’s Day-to-Day Reflections 1939–45
, Harrap, London, 1979.
Du Maurier, Angela,
It’s Only the Sister: An Autobiography
, Peter Davis, London, 1951.
Faviell, Frances,
A Chelsea Concerto
, Cassell and Co., London, 1959.
Faviell, Frances,
The Dancing Bear: Berlin de Profundis
, Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1954.
Forrester, Helen,
By the Waters of Liverpool
, The Bodley Head, 1981.
Forrester, Helen,
Lime Street at Two
, The Bodley Head, 1985.
Forrester, Helen,
Thursday’s Child
, Hodder and Stoughton, 1959.
Garfield, Simon, ed.,
We Are at War: The Remarkable Diaries of Five Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times,
Ebury Press, London, 2005.
Grenfell, Joyce,
Joyce Grenfell: The Time of My Life, Entertaining the Troops: Her Wartime Journals
, ed. James Roose-Evans, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1989.
Grieve, Mary,
Millions Made My Story
, Victor Gollancz, London, 1964.
Hampton, Janie, ed.,
Joyce and Ginnie
– the Letters of Joyce Grenfell and Virginia Graham
, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1997.
Henrey, Mrs Robert,
The Farm in Normandy and The Return to the Farm
, J. M. Dent and Sons, London, 1952.
Henrey, Mrs Robert,
London Under Fire
, J. M. Dent and Sons, London, 1982.
Henrey, Mrs Robert,
Madeleine’s Journal
, J. M. Dent and Sons, London, 1953.
Hewins, Mary,
Mary, after the Queen
, Oxford University Press, 1986.
Hodgson, Vere,
Few Eggs and No Oranges: The Diaries of Vere Hodgson 1940
–
45
, Persephone Books, London, 1999.
Howard, Elizabeth Jane,
Slipstream: A Memoir
, Macmillan, 2002.
Hurst, Margery,
No Glass Slipper
, Sphere Books, London, 1968.
Huxley, Elspeth,
Atlantic Ordeal
, Chatto and Windus, London, 1941.
Jolly, Margaretta, ed.,
Dear Laughing Motorbyke: Letters from Women Welders of the Second World War
, Scarlet Press, London, 1977.
Joseph, Shirley,
If Their Mothers Only Knew: An Unofficial Account of Life in the Women’s Land Army,
Faber and Faber, London, 1946.
Katin, Zelma,
Clippie: The Autobiography of a War Time Conductress
, John Gifford, London, 1944.
Kite, Lorna,
Mentioned in Despatches: World War II as Seen through the Eyes of a Nurse
, unpublished, Archive of Working-class Autobiographies, Brunel University.
Koa Wing, Sandra, ed.,
Our Longest Days: A People’s History of the Second World War
, Profile Books, London, 2008.
Lamb, Christian,
I Only Joined for the Hat: Redoubtable Wrens at War: Their Trials Tribulations and Triumphs
, Bene Factum Publishing, London, 2007.
Leslie, Anita,
A Story Half-told: A Wartime Autobiography
, Hutchinson, London, 1983.
Levine, Joshua,
Forgotten Voices of the Blitz and the Battle for Britain
, Ebury Press, London, 2007.
Long, Helen,
Change into Uniform: An Autobiography 1939–1946
, Terence Dalton, Lavenham, 1978.
MacCarthy, Fiona,
Last Curtsey: The End of the Debutantes,
Faber and Faber, London, 2006.
Malcolmson, Patricia and Robert, eds.,
Nella Last’s Peace: The Post-war Diaries of Housewife, 49
, Profile Books, London, 2008.
Marnham, Patrick,
Wild Mary: The Life of Mary Wesley
, Chatto and Windus, London, 2006.
Mitchison, Naomi,
Among You Taking Notes: The Wartime Diary of Naomi Mitchison
, ed. Dorothy Sheridan, Victor Gollancz, London, 1985.
Mundahl-Harris, Sylvia,
The View from the Cookhouse Floor
, Caedmon of Whitby, 1995.
Nicholson, Mavis,
What Did You Do in the War, Mummy? Women in World War II
, Chatto and Windus, London, 1995.
Nixon, Barbara,
Raiders Overhead: A Diary of the London Blitz
, Scolar Press, London, in association with Gulliver Publishing Co., Banbury, 1980.
Partridge, Frances,
Everything to Lose: Diaries 1945–1960
, Victor Gollancz, London, 1985.
Partridge, Frances,
A Pacifist’s War
, The Hogarth Press, London, 1978.
Pawley, Margaret,
In Obedience to Instructions: FANY with the SOE in the Mediterranean
, Leo Cooper, Barnsley, 1999.
Perry, Margaret, untitled memoir, unpublished, Archive of Working-class Autobiographies, Brunel University.
Powell, Margaret,
Climbing the Stairs
, Peter Davies, London, 1969.
Pym, Barbara,
A Very Private Eye: An Autobiography in Letters and Diaries
, Macmillan, London, 1984.
Raynes, Rozelle,
Maid Matelot
, Nautical Publishing Company, Lymington, Hampshire, 1971.
Scannell, Dorothy,
Dolly’s War
, Macmillan, London, 1975.
Smith, Lyn,
Young Voices: British Children Remember the Second World War
, Viking, London, 2007.
Speed, Florence, Diary of Miss F. M. Speed, Imperial War Museum, London, Department of Documents, IWM 86/45/2.
Symington, Monica,
A Memoire: The War and Its Aftermath
, Imperial War Museum, London, Department of Documents, IWM 01/19/1.
Taylor, Eric,
Heroines of World War II
, Robert Hale, London, 1991.
Tedder, Valerie A.,
Post-war Blues
, Leicester City Council, 1999.
Townsend, Colin and Eileen,
War Wives: A Second World War Anthology
, Grafton Books, London and Glasgow, 1989.
Wayne, Hilary,
Two Odd Soldiers
, George Allen and Unwin, London, 1946.
Wells, Maureen,
Entertaining Eric: A Wartime Love Story
, Ebury Press, London, 2007.
Wharton, Margaret H.,
Recollections of a G.I. War Bride: A Wiltshire Childhood
, Alan Sutton Publishing, Gloucester, 1984.
White, Doris,
D for Doris, V for Victory
, Oakleaf Books in association with Peoples Press, Milton Keynes, 1981.
Willmott, Phyllis,
Coming of Age in Wartime
, Peter Owen, London, 1995.
Willmott, Phyllis,
A Green Girl
, Peter Owen, London, 1983.
Willmott, Phyllis,
Joys and Sorrows: Fragments from the Post-war Years
, Peter Owen, London, 1995.
Woolf, Virginia,
The Diaries of Virginia Woolf
, vol. 5, ed. Anne Olivier Bell, The Hogarth Press, London, 1984.
Wyndham, Joan,
Anything Once
, Sinclair-Stevenson, London, 1992.
Wyndham, Joan,
Love Is Blue: A Wartime Diary
, Heinemann, London, 1986.
Wyndham, Joan,
Love Lessons: A Wartime Diary
, Heinemann, London, 1985.
History, Sociology, Documentation, Advice
Books about the Second World War proliferate at an alarming rate; few researchers can hope to do more than skim the surface, and the following
list is highly selective. Material on the post-war world is thinner on the ground. I have accordingly given my choice of books on the later 1940s a section to itself.
Pre-war and Second World War
Adam, Ruth,
A Woman’s Place 1910–1975
, Chatto and Windus, London, 1975.
Adie, Kate,
Corsets to Camouflage: Women and War
, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 2003.
Anderson, Bette,
We Just Got on with It: British Women in World War II
, Picton Publishing, Chippenham, 1994.
Beevor, Antony,
D-Day: The Battle for Normandy
, Viking, London, 2009.
Bletchley Park,
The Bletchley Park War Diaries July 1939–August 1945
, printed in aid of the Bletchley Park Trust.
Boston, Anne and Jenny Hartley, eds.,
Wave Me Goodbye and Hearts Undefeated
, Virago, London, 2003.
Bowley, Ruth,
Women – in a Man’s World?
Bureau of Current Affairs, London, 1949.
Braybon, Gail and Penny Summerfield,
Out of the Cage: Women’s Experiences in Two World Wars
, Pandora, London, 1987.
Briggs, Asa,
Go to It! Working for Victory on the Home Front 1939–1945
, Mitchell Beazley, London, 2000.
Briggs, Susan,
Keep Smiling Through: The Home Front 1939–45
, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1975.
Brittain, Vera,
Lady into Woman: A History of Women from Victoria to Elizabeth II
, Andrew Dakers, London, 1953.
Calder, Angus,
The Myth of the Blitz
, Jonathan Cape, London, 1991.
Calder, Angus,
The People’s War: Britain 1939
–
1945
, Jonathan Cape, London, 1969.
Costello, John,
Love, Sex and War: Changing Values 1939–1945
, William Collins Sons and Co., London, 1985.
De Courcy, Anne,
Debs at War: 1939–1945: How Wartime Changed Their Lives
, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 2005.
Donnelly, Mark,
Britain in the Second World War
, Routledge, London and New York, 1999.
Gardiner, Juliet,
The Thirties: An Intimate History
, HarperPress, London, 2010.
Gardiner, Juliet,
Wartime Britain 1939–1945
, Headline, London, 2004.
Goldsmith, Margaret,
Women and the Future
, Lindsay Drummond, London, 1946.
Goralski, Robert,
World War II Almanac 1931–1945: A Political and Military Record
, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1981.
Graves, Charles,
Women in Green: The Story of the W.V.S.
, Heinemann, London, 1948.
Gubar, Susan,
‘ “This is My Rifle, This is My Gun”: World War II and the Blitz on Women’
, in Margaret Randolph Higonnet et al., eds.,
Behind the Lines: Gender and the Two World Wars
, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1987.
Halsey, A. H., ed.,
Trends in British Society since 1900: A Guide to the Changing Social Structure of Britain
, The Macmillan Press, London and Basingstoke, 1972.
Harrisson, Tom,
Living through the Blitz
, Collins, London, 1976.
Hayes, Denis,
Challenge of Conscience: The Story of the Conscientious Objectors of 1939–1949
, Allen and Unwin, London, 1949.
Heath, F. F., ed.,
A Churchill Anthology: Selections from the Writings and Speeches of Sir Winston Churchill,
Odhams Books, London, 1965.
Hinton, James,
Women, Social Leadership, and the Second World War: Continuities of Class
, Oxford University Press, 2002.
Holdsworth, Angela,
Out of the Doll’s House: The Story of Women in the Twentieth Century
, BBC Books, London, 1988.
Howlett, Peter,
Fighting with Figures: A Statistical Digest of the Second World War
, HMSO (Central Statistical Office), 1995.