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    Mrs. Miniver
    Mrs. Miniver
    Mrs. Miniver
    Ebook152 pages3 hours

    Mrs. Miniver

    By Jan Struther

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    The beloved classic novel of an English housewife bravely enduring WWII—the basis for the Academy Award–winning film starring Greer Garson.

    Winston Churchill once remarked that Mrs. Miniver, the fictional British housewife featured in Jan Struther’s newspaper columns about quotidian English life, did more for the Allied cause than a flotilla of battleships. As tensions rose across Europe, Mrs. Miniver’s domestic concerns expanded from automobiles and Christmas shopping to include gas masks, keeping calm, and carrying on.
     
    An international sensation when it was first published, this novelized collection of those columns won America’s heart—and broad public support for entering WWII. Mrs. Miniver’s story was so essential to Allied morale that when William Wyler’s film adaption was made, President Roosevelt ordered it rushed to theaters.
     
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Media
    Release dateMay 21, 2019
    ISBN9781504058087
    Mrs. Miniver
    Author

    Jan Struther

    Jan Struther was the pen name of Joyce Anstruther, later Joyce Maxtone Graham, and finally Joyce Placzek, a writer remembered for her character Mrs. Miniver and a number of hymns, including “Lord of All Hopefulness.” During the 1930s, Struther became known as the author of stylish poems and essays for Punch, and Peter Fleming of the Times asked her to create a character whose doings would enliven the Court Page of the paper: “an ordinary sort of woman who leads an ordinary sort of life—rather like yourself.” In fact, Struther was very far from ordinary: She was tiny, very pretty, and bursting with unconventional zest and enthusiasm (two of her favorite words). The collected articles, which had become enormously popular, were published as Mrs. Miniver in 1939, shortly after the outbreak of World War II. Soon afterward, Struther went to lecture in America, where Mrs. Miniver became a much-loved Hollywood film starring Greer Garson. President Roosevelt told Struther that the book had hastened America’s entry into the war, and Churchill was to declare that it had done more for the Allies than a flotilla of battleships.

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    Reviews for Mrs. Miniver

    4/5

    141 ratings16 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I reread the story of Mrs. Miniver choosing an engagement book at the beginning of every new year. Very definitely domestic fiction.
    • 5/5
      Piquant balm; use sparingly. Barely over 100 pages but full of kindly, apt observations like an ultra-refined and gracious lunch companion. Originally light columns in the Times, one can see how they were instantly a hit, and the character of Mrs Miniver established. Her neat, concise epistles pulse with the aches of lost worlds both of comfortable domestic, social, and gender roles, and of those post-Munich, prewar, and phony war days of solidarity and closure and trepidation. The flavour has that odd and enjoyable sense of being nostalgic, even of events squarely in the present. Her elegant diction is clear and familiar, plain even, but still achieves beautiful, well-turned images: "The woods were just beginning to turn, the different trees springing into individuality again, demobilized from the uniform green of summer."
    • 4/5
      Mrs. Miniver is a novel and collection of essays that focuses on the day-to-day life of a 1930s housewife. The “chapters” are more vignettes that focus on the trivial events of Mrs. Miniver’s life: visits to the dentist’s, the changing of the seasons, holidays with her husband, an architect, and their three children, and Christmas shopping.All of this sounds, boring, but it’s not. Jan Struther describes Mrs. Miniver’s life poetically, with emphasis on the little details. The essays are a reflective look into the thoughts and feelings of one inter-war housewife (although the story is told in the third person). There’s no plot or character development, but Mrs. Miniver describes her lifelife exquisitely. There’s also a subtle undercurrent of humor to this book, although it’s not quite as laugh-out-loud as DE Stevenson’s Mrs. Tim books or Henrietta’s War, by Joyce Dennys. On the other hand, though, Mrs. Miniver makes some really insightful comments on a wide variety of topics—everything from the impending war to her love of engagement books. There’s not much in the way of plot to this book, but nonetheless, it’s quite wonderful.
    • 5/5
      A series of vignettes from Mrs Miniver's life with her husband and three children in (just barely) pre-WWII middle-class England, the book is full of keen observations about all sorts of things (marriage, children, motherhood, visiting, war, reading, springtime). It's nowhere near as twee as you fear it might be--I was consistently delighted while reading and was forever recognizing myself, or recognizing someone I hope I will be in ten or fifteen years. And when I did neither of those things, I wished desperately that Mrs Miniver would take it into her head to move in next door. Recommended.
    • 4/5
      I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this. It is well written and full of perceptive comments, despite being rather twee. The content first appeared in a column in the Times newspaper, and was published as a book in 1939. Apparently Churchill said it had done more for the Allied cause than a flotilla of battleships, and Roosevelt claimed that it had hastened America's entry into war.
    • 4/5
      A witty and well written novel about middle class family life on the eve of war. However, it is very unlike the film. The latter is mostly set after the outbreak of war, whereas in the book (published just after the outbreak of hostilities) it is hovering in the near future, e.g. buying gasmarks, accepting evacuated children in the country home. The oldest son, Vin, is here only 15 years old, not getting married and becoming a fighter pilot. No tragic death of a daughter-in-law or prize-winning flower contest. Film and book are both very good, but in different ways.
    • 3/5
      Contrary to my expectations, I like the movie much more than the book. The plot was tightened and the characters more interesting.
    • 4/5
      I read this book because I loved the film, so I was surprised to find out the film is completely different from the book! The only thing they have in common is the characters. Despite that, I still enjoyed the book. It has an interesting format due to originally being very short stories in a newspaper column (there is no plot, just little vignettes).
    • 4/5
      The movie based on this book was all the rage and I had seen it before I read the book. Many of my peers were greatly disappointed in the book, since it does have the excitement which the movie had. But I remember finding it of merit.
    • 4/5
      Mrs. Miniver is a lovely read. Not really a novel or a series of short stories, it is more like a diary. Caroline Miniver is a very appealing woman with a wonderful husband and three delightful children. The year is 1938 and the first half of the book concerns the everyday life of the Miniver family from shooting off fireworks on Guy Fawkes night to the the delights of November on the moors of Scotland, Christmas stockings, and the first day of spring. Mrs. Miniver's biggest worries are matching guests at a dinner party, finding a char to help, tracing down a noxious smell at her cottage in Kent, and explaining "tossing a caber" to the English governess at the Highland Games.She and her architect husband enjoy a privileged life. He designs country houses and she is cozy with the titled gentry. She runs her two homes, one in Chelsea on the river and the other in the country, with a staff of five. Her eldest son is in boarding school and her younger two will join him eventually. Yet, I don't believe any reader would look with disapproval at Mrs Miniver's very comfortable life. She is so good and kind that the reader feels that she deserves an easeful time, if anyone does.But with the chapter Gas Masks, the book becomes more serious. It is the phony war period of 1939. England and Germany are at war but the blitz has not begun, so people have yet to face the horror of bombs and destruction. Mrs. Miniver's husband is in the military and her country home has relocated London children in it. She manages to see humour in the barrage balloons, attends the Dame Myra Hess concerts at the National Gallery, muses how quiet London has become because of so little traffic due to the blackout. She refuses to succumb to the gloomy prediction that "things will never be the same." She is ever the optimist that life actually will be better when the war is over. People who fight for their beliefs surely will find a way to live in harmony and better society.In hindsight, Mrs.Miniver is naive. The war didn't end hatred and banish poverty. It didn't become a slate to write down and erase society's woes. The horrors of the concentration camps showed depravity that Mrs. Miniver, or any normal person for that matter, could never imagine. No one could predict the 75 millions dead, soldiers and civilians. And the end of conflict did not mean the end of tragedy. Too many families were torn apart because of the long separations. (Jan Struther's own 23 year marriage could not withstand the five year separation when her husband was a prisoner of war and they divorced in 1947.)But what a lovely world it would have been if Mrs. Miniver's hopes had been realized.A suggestion: A good companion book to Mrs Miniver is Molly Panter-Downes' One Fine Day. Her novel is set in 1946 and is about how life did change for the upper middle class as a result of the war. The protagonist, Laura Marshall, is also a wonderful woman and I can see Laura and Caroline having tea and discussing how to cope with the postwar world. I do know that they both will continue to believe that there is more good than evil in the world and goodness will prevail.
    • 5/5
      Acquired via BookCrossing 09 Dec 2010 - bookringA wonderful book - I'm amazed I haven't read this before, actually. Columns written for The Times in the late 1930s about family life, with the addition of letters written in the beginning part of WW2. The pieces are so absolutely beautifully written and observed - I particularly liked the one about the different ways the children opened their Christmas stockings, but every essay has a lovely turn of phrase, a gentle humour or a sharp observation. An excellent read, and made me want to go back to the Diaries of the Provincial Lady, which are funnier, but have something of the same tone.I was at the end of this bookring and am allowed to do what I want with it, so do shout if you'd like a read of it and I'll send it along!
    • 3/5
      Sweet and thoughtful reflections of (privileged) family life pre-WWII. They are only a few pages each. Enjoyable and fast read, if at times a bit inconsequential.
    • 5/5
      I absolutely love Mrs. Miniver. I've read it a dozen times at least, and it still make me laugh at bits and nearly cry at others and nod my head in recognition at nearly everything. She has a wonderful way of seeing things - of putting into words vague ideas or feelings that I've had but couldn't pin down. And for me, as for her, it's words that are necessary to make a feeling or memory real and solid and recoverable - however wonderful, a sensation that's only that will slip away. BTW, if you've seen or heard of the movie with Greer Garson - the only thing it has in common with the book is the name. Nothing wrong with it, but it's _not_ Mrs. Miniver.
    • 4/5
      The Mrs. Miniver by Jan Struthers that I just read has very little in common with the 1942 film of the same name starring Greer Garson. But looking a little closer, perhaps the film is the future for the Miniver family, what happened after the book closed. In any case, both the book and the movie paint a distinct picture of the stoic English upper middle class of the 1930’s.First off I loved how the author set the scene, imprinting vividly the absolute Englishness of Mrs. Miniver and her family. The book is comprised of a series of essays, and whether it’s her gentle musings on her home, family and friends, or her razor-sharp observations on human nature in general, Mrs. Miniver is a joy to read. The war is very much in the background of this book, you sense it coming along on cat’s paws, first lightly mentioned in passing, then on to the fitting of gas masks, and eventually we find Mrs. Miniver planning her 1939 Christmas that will include her seven evacuee children and may not include her husband unless he is able to get leave from his unit to be with them.The book is deceptively charming and sentimental, but underneath you can feel strength of purpose and steadfastness that the author is portraying, Mrs. Miniver was originally meant as a propaganda article and was published in the newspaper, nevertheless this is a literary piece that captures a certain type of woman in what will probably be her finest hour.
    • 4/5
      Mrs. Miniver is a compilation of short stories that originally appeared in a London newspaper in the late 1930s. The book doesn't have a plot, yet there are some story arcs that can be traced through the collection, particularly the build-up to World War II. The stories depict middle class life between the wars and give readers an idea of what was at stake in World War II. Struther's style is an appealing blend of pragmatism and imagination (or perhaps curiosity). I can see why this book was so popular in its day and why it still attracts readers decades later. Here's a small taste from the story “Gas Masks”:...if the worst came to the worst, these children would at least know that we were fighting against an idea, and not against a nation. Whereas the last generation had been told to run and play in the garden, had been shut out from the grown-ups' worried conclaves: and then quite suddenly had all been plunged into an orgy of licensed lunacy, of boycotting Grimm and Struwwelpeter, of looking askance at their cousins' old Fräulein, and of feeling towards Dachshund puppies the uneasy tenderness of a devout churchwoman dandling her daughter's love-child. But this time those lunacies—or rather, the outlook which bred them—must not be allowed to come into being. To guard against that was the most important of all the forms of war work which she and other women would have to do: there are no tangible gas masks to defend us in wartime against its slow, yellow, drifting corruption of the mind.
    • 3/5
      The 1942 film, “Mrs. Miniver” strengthened America’s resolve in the early days of World War II The lovie was (very) loosely based on a book of the same name which itself had originated as a series of newspaper columns in The Lo0ndon Times.Mrs. Miniver is an upper-middle class housewife who is charming, witty and the mother of three children, the oldest of whom is away at Eton. The family has a home in London’s Chelsea neighborhood as well as a country house, “Starlings.” Her life is comfortable and concerned with little more than her husband buying a new car or her vague feeling of unease about the approach of winter signifying death.However, all that changes when the threat of war becomes real and she finds herself st the local Council office having gas masks fitted for herself and her children. Unlike the movie, the book does not go beyond the period of the “Phony War,” so there is nothing related about her husband joining those who rescued the British Army at Dunkirk, or her kitchen being invaded by a downed German pilot. Still, we see through these vignettes that beneath her frivolity and somewhat silly musings, Mrs. Miniver is made of stern stuff and that she is capable of guiding her family through a very long and nasty war.This was an easy read and a revealing look into British life at the end of the inter-war period.

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    Mrs. Miniver - Jan Struther

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