Jan Struther

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.

Mrs. Miniver

Shortly before the Second World War, a column by 'Mrs Miniver' appeared in THE TIMES, the first of many recounting the everyday events of a middle-class Chelsea family: Mrs Miniver's thrill at the sight of October chrysanthemums; her sense of doom when the faithful but rackety car is replaced; the escapades of Vin, Toby and Judy, her unpredictable young children; visits to the Kent cottage and, as war becomes a reality, the strange experience of acquiring gas masks and the cameraderie of those unsettling early days. Mrs Miniver enchanted the public with her sympathy and affectionate humour, capturing ordinary lives and values now darkened by war. First published in book form in 1939 and later an enormously successful film, MRS MINIVER became a bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic -- with Churchill exclaiming that it had done more for the Allied cause than a flotilla of battleships.

Mrs Miniver

More essays and sketches from the author of Mrs Miniver. Jan Struther (1909-1953) was the pen name of Joyce Maxtone Graham. The pieces in this book first appeared in the Spectator, New Statesman, Punch and other journals.

Essays & Sketches

Try Anything Twice

In prewar England, Mrs. Miniver, an ordinary English wife and mother of three, finds extraordinary aspects of life in the everyday routines others take for granted

A picture of Mrs. Miniver in many moods shown thru a succession of episodes such as the return to London after the holidays, the new car, Christmas, the countryside, Scotland, gas masks, a trip to the dentist, and a journey abroad.

Jan Struther

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