Mervyn_Jones_(writer)

Mervyn Jones (writer)

Mervyn Jones (writer)

British novelist, journalist and biographer

For the British diplomat, see Mervyn Jones.

Mervyn Jones (27 February 1922 – 23 February 2010[1]) was a British novelist, journalist and biographer, the son of psychoanalyst Ernest Jones.[2]

Quick Facts Born, Died ...

Mervyn Jones wrote 29 novels (five unpublished),[3] including John and Mary (1966), the basis for the 1969 film,[4] and Holding On (1973), which was adapted for television in 1977.[5]

Jones also wrote non-fiction, reportage and biography, including a fictional biography of Joseph Stalin in 1970 and a biography of his friend Michael Foot, the former Labour Party leader, in 1994.[6] A former Communist, Jones wrote for the Daily Worker, and later the New Reasoner and Tribune; he was later assistant editor at the New Statesman.[6]

He died in 2010 at age 87.[6]

Selected works

Fiction

  • No Time To Be Young (1952)
  • The New Town (1953)
  • Helen Blake (1955)
  • On the Last Day (1958)
  • A Set of Wives (1965)
  • John and Mary (1966)
  • A Survivor (1968)
  • Joseph (1970)
  • Mr Armitage Isn't Back Yet (1971)
  • Holding On (1973; new edition by Eland in 2009)
  • The Revolving Door (1973)
  • Strangers (1974)
  • Lord Richard's Passion (1974)
  • Twilight of the Day (1975)
  • The Pursuit of Happiness (1975)
  • Scenes From Bourgeois Life (1976)
  • Nobody's Fault (1977)
  • Today The Struggle (1978)
  • The Beautiful Words (1979)
  • A Short Time To Live (1980)
  • Two Women and Their Man (1982)
  • Joanna's Luck (1984)
  • Coming Home (1986)
  • That Year in Paris (1988)

Non-fiction

  • Guilty Men (1957) [with Michael Foot]
  • Potbank: A Social Enquiry into Life in the Potteries (1961)
  • Big Two: Life in America and Russia (1962) [aka The Antagonists]
  • Two Ears of Corn – Oxfam in Action (1965) [aka In Famine's Shadow – a Private War on Hunger]
  • Kingsley Martin: Portrait and Self-portrait (1969) [Ed.]
  • Rhodesia: The White Judge's Burden (1972)
  • Life on the Dole (1972)
  • Privacy (1974)
  • The Oil Rush (1976)
  • Chances: An Autobiography (1987)
  • A Radical Life: The Biography of Megan Lloyd George (1991)
  • Michael Foot (1994)
  • The Amazing Victorian: A Life of George Meredith (1999)

References

  1. [1]
    Geoffrey Goodman Obituary, The Guardian, 26 February 2010
  2. [2]
    Obituary The Times, 2 March 2010.
  3. [3]
    "Mervyn Jones obituary". TheGuardian.com. 25 February 2010.
  4. [4]
    "Obituary: Mervyn Jones, 1922-2010 | Tribune". www.tribunemagazine.org. Archived from the original on 9 February 2015.
  5. [5]
    "Holding on (TV Series 1977– ) – IMDb". IMDb.
  6. [6]
    "Mervyn Jones". www.telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 18 January 2023.


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