Journey from the North

'When Storm Jameson set out to write a memoir... she found literary gold' VIVIAN GORNICK

'A fascinating life story, told with passion, clarity and a fierce intelligence' SARAH WATERS

After decades of writing a novel every year, Storm Jameson found her form in the memoir. With stringent, witty self-scrutiny, she wrestled with the great events of her life: childhood struggles with her tempestuous mother; an early, unhappy marriage; repeated flights from settled domestic life; and a hard-won career in writing and politics.

In a voice of electric immediacy, Jameson recounts the great shocks of the twentieth century, from losing her brother in the First World War to tirelessly helping refugees escape Nazi Germany during the Second. An arrestingly candid account of a rich life, this is one the great literary memoirs.



Margaret 'Storm' Jameson (1891-1986) was an English journalist and author. Born and raised in Whitby, she gained a scholarship to study English at the University of Leeds. After graduating with a First-Class degree, she moved to London where she became active in politics and began to write. Jameson remained committed to politics and literature throughout her life: she published a total of forty-five novels, as well as criticism, short stories and innumerable political articles; she was also the first female president of the British section of International PEN. In later life, she turned to writing her memoirs and produced the two volumes of Journey from the North, initially published in 1969 and 1970. Jameson died in 1986 at the age of ninety-five.