Handheld World War 2 Classics Series

Blitz Writing emerges out of the 1940-1941 London Blitz. The drama of these two short works—a novella and a memoir—comes from the courage and endurance of ordinary people met in the factories, streets and lodging houses of a city under bombardment. Night Shift follows a largely working-class cast of characters for five night shifts in a factory that produces camera parts for war planes. It Was Different At The Time is Holden's account of wartime life from April 1938 to August 1941, drawn from her own diary. The latter was intended to be a joint project written with her friend George Orwell and includes disguised appearances of Orwell, Stevie Smith and other notable literary figures of the period. The experiences recorded in It Was Different At The Time overlap in period and subject with Night Shift, setting up a vibrant dialogue between the two texts. The introduction and notes are by Kristin Bluemel, Professor of English at Monmouth University NJ, exploring how these short prose texts work as multiple stories: of Inez Holden herself, the history of the Blitz, of middlebrow women's writing, of Second World War fiction, and of the world of work.

Rose Macaulay’s anti-war writing collected in one fascinating and thought-provoking volume. Non-Combatants and Others (1916) is a classic of pacifist writing and was one of the first novels to be written and published in Britain during World War I that set out the moral and ideological arguments against war. Scathing and heart-breaking, it finds a way for pacifists to work for an end to conflict. Also included is some of Macaulay’s journalism for The Spectator, Time & Tide, The Listener and other magazines from the mid-1930s to the end of World War II, detailing the rise of fascism and the civilian response to the impending war. Witty, furious and despairing in turn, these forgotten magazine columns reveal new insights into how people find war and its tyrannies creeping up on them. These are supported by Macaulay’s two inter-war essays on pacifism and a short story narrating a devastating account of the loss of her flat and all her possessions in the Blitz. The Introduction is by Jessica Gildersleeve of the University of Southern Queensland.

Kennedy was an acclaimed novelist and playwright best-known for The Constant Nymph. In this autobiographical account, taken from her war diaries, she conveys the tension, frustration and bewilderment of the progression of the war, and the terror of knowing that the worst is to come, but not yet knowing what the worst will be.  English bravery, confusion, stubbornness and dark humor provide the positive, more hopeful side of her experiences, in which she and her children move from Surrey to Cornwall, to sit out the war amidst a quietly efficient Home Guard and the most scandalous rumors. "Most people knew in their hearts that the lid had been taken off hell, and that what had been done in Guernica would one day be done in London, Paris and Berlin." Margaret Kennedy’s prophetic words, written about the pre-war mood in Europe, give the tone of this riveting 1941 wartime memoir: it is Mrs Miniver with the gloves off. Where Stands A Wingèd Sentry, the title comes from a 17th-century poem by Henry Vaughan, was only published in the USA in 1942, and was never published in the UK, until now.

At last she reached the brow of the hill … now the country opened out below her and she looked down into a wide and lovely valley … Still patched with snow the little fields spread like a carpet below her and here and there a farmhouse with barns and golden ricks was clearly seen. Across the plain ran, straight as a ruler, a railway line and she saw a toy train puffing and crawling across the picture. Malcolm Saville’s classic novel from 1946 is about eleven-year old Jane’s discovery of nature and country life during a year spent convalescing on her uncle’s farm, after having been dangerously ill in post-war London. This deeply-felt novel was written while Saville was extending his range as a writer, alongside his very successful Lone Pine adventure series, and nature anthologies for children. Inspired by the experiences of Saville’s own god-daughter, this marvellous novel is full of the wonder of discovery, as well the happiness of regaining health, making friends, and learning to love the natural world. The novel is also a record of rural England eighty years ago, written by one of the great twentieth century English nature writers. The Introduction is written by Hazel Sheeky Bird of the University of Newcastle. The illustrations by Bernard Bowerman have been reproduced from the first edition.

John Llewelyn Rhys (1911-1940) was born in Abergavenny, Wales, in the United Kingdom. He published The Flying Shadow in 1936 (also reissued by Handheld Press), and in 1939 published The World Owes Me A Living (filmed in 1945). Both were powerful novels about British aviation in the 1930s: the planes, the pilots, their need to be in the air, their skill and bravery, their hard-drinking lives, the long-distance record-breaking attempts, and death through accidents and taking one risk too many.  In August 1940 Rhys died in an RAF training flight. His widow, the novelist Jane Oliver (author of Handheld’s best-selling Business as Usual), assembled his last book for publication: a collection of short stories published in 1941 as England is My Village. It won the prestigious Hawthornden Prize in 1942, and in the same year Jane Oliver set up the John Llewelyn Rhys Prize in her late husband’s memory: ‘something to give young writers the extra chance he didn’t get’. This new edition of England is My Village, and The World Owes Me A Living is a stunning rediscovery of this brilliant writer. ‘Had he lived,’ an obituary  noted, ‘he might have become the Kipling of the RAF.’ Rhys’s prose is spare and direct, with no words wasted. The dialogue is immediate, conveying mood, emotion, relationships, character and action with precision. The stories date from 1936 to 1940 and remind us of the responsibilities placed on very young men flying thousands of feet up in the air in boxes of metal, petrol and canvas.  The Introduction is written by Kate Macdonald and Luke Seaber.

Middle-aged Mildred is at war. She’s driving an ambulance in London during the Blitz, terrified but determined to do her bit while the bombs rain down. She’s living at her friend Daphne’s house, sleeping in the living room alongside other women volunteers on mattresses, being cooked for by the redoubtable Mrs Dove, and working her shifts at the ambulance station. She sees the nightly destruction of London’s buildings and streets close-up and death at first hand. Nine years after Business as Usual, author and illustrator Ann Stafford’s experiences in the Blitz bring British history back to life. Her novel is a fascinating report from the front lines of the Home Front in the darkest days of the war. Her heroes are the volunteers, the women and men who picked up the pieces and the bodies after the bombs stopped falling. Until the next raid .... Ann Stafford’s inimitable illustrations add authentic glimpses of life under fire on the Home Front. With an Introduction by Jessica Hammett, University of Bristol.