Jean Overton Fuller

Noor-un-nisa Inayat Khan was a gentle girl, the great-great-great grand-daughter of the Tiger of Mysore, and the daughter of the Sufi teacher Inayat Khan, who founded the Sufi movement and Sufi Order in the West. When war broke out, in 1939, she was already achieving her first successes, As a harpist she had been heard at the Salle Erard. Her stories were appearing on the children's page of 'Le Figaro' and broadcast on Radiodiffusion Francaise, her 'Twenty Jataka Tales' being brought out by a London publisher; she was just founding a children's newspaper. Later she was betrayed to the Sicherheitsdienst and as a prisoner of importance was held at their HQ on the Avenue Foch. After a daring attempt to escape, via the roof, she refused to give parole and was sent to Germany, where she was kept for most of the time in chains, before being shot at Dachau. She was posthumously awarded the George Cross and the Crois de Guerre.

(Madelaine) : George Cross, M.B.E, Croix de Guerre with Gold Star

Noor-un-nisa Inayat Khan

DRIVEN TO IT is the life story of a writer whose name half a century ago was on everybody's lips and concerning whose first two books, MADELEINE published in 1952 and THE STARR AFFAIR published in 1954, indignant questions were asked in Parliament. The furore she created then is partly forgotten now, but only because its consquences - and its content - have passed into people's general awareness of the history of Europe and the tragedies of World War Two. In the nineteen fifties Jean Overton Fuller's books broke fresh ground, for she was the first person publicly to describe the shadowy, complicated and (in some respects) sadly mismanaged French Section of the British Special Operations Executive.

An Autobiography

Driven to it

Last Scion of the House of Rákóczy

The Comte de Saint-Germain

Cyril Scott

Towards the Peeling of an Onion

Cyril Scott and a Hidden School

Francis Bacon, a Biography

A Biography

Sir Francis Bacon

Noor Inayat Khan (1914-1944) was SOE's first woman wireless transmitter in German Occupied Paris during World War II. Posthumously awarded the George Cross MBE and Croix de Guerre with Gold Star for her outstanding wartime service and heroism on behalf of the Allied cause, Noor's remarkable and inspiring life have been commemorated in numerous war memorials, WWII histories, and several films. Born to an American mother, Ora Ray Baker, and an Indian Sufi father, Hazrat Inayat Khan, Noor was raised in France, studying music under Nadia Boulanger and child psychology at the Sorbonne. Her children's stories appeared in Le Figaro and were broadcast over Radiodiffusion Francaise, and her book Twenty Jataka Tales was published in London. Her writing career was interrupted by the German invasion of France in 1940. The Inayat Khan family fled to England, and Noor enlisted in the WAAF where she trained as a wireless transmitter. Her Parisian background and wireless skills led to her recruitment by the SOE (Special Operations Executive). In 1943 she was secretly flown back to France where she began her undercover work under the code name "Madeleine." Constantly on the move between multiple locations and using false identities, Noor transmitted messages for the SOE's French and RF (République Française) sections, and for De Gaulle's Free French network. Betrayed by an acquaintance, she was captured by the Gestapo and held for interrogation in Paris. After repeated escape attempts, she was deemed a dangerous prisoner and transferred to Pforzheim prison in Germany, where she was held in maximum security and solitary confinement. As the war drew to an end in the fall of 1944, Noor was transported to Dachau, where she was executed. Her last word before being shot was "Liberté!" This new edition of "Noor-un-nisa: Madeleine" includes previously unpublished material including a retrospective by Noor's brother Vilayat Inayat Khan, Noor friendship with the author, and further research on Noor's life and the SOE.

Noor-un-nisa Inayat Khan: Madeleine

Magician, Poet and Seer, Victor Neuburg was the disciple of Aleister Crowley and literary godfather of Dylan Thomas. Really two books in one. Firstly a record of one man's extraordinary journey to magical enlightenment. Secondly the story of the Aleister Crowley, the magus who summoned Neuburg to join him in the quest. The book opens with the author's entry into the group of young poets including Dylan Thomas and Pamela Hansford Johnson. They gather around Victor Neuburg in 1935 when he is poetry editor of the Sunday Referee. Gradually the author becomes aware of his strange and sinister past, in which Neuburg was associated in magic with Aleister Crowley. Neuburg had been Crowley's partner in magical rituals in the desert and in rites even more dangerous and controversial. The author sought out the truth behind the rumours and with her intuitive understanding of deeper things presents a sympathetic and compelling biography. 'Vicky encouraged me as no one else has done, ' Dylan Thomas declared on hearing of Neuburg's death. 'He possessed many kinds of genius, and not the least was his genius for drawing to himself, by his wisdom, graveness, great humour and innocence, a feeling of trust and love, that won't ever be forgotten.' ' . . . there was a whiff of sulphur abroad, and all of us would have liked to know the truth of the Aleister Crowley's legends, the truth of the witch-like baroness called Cremers, the abandonment of Neuburg in the desert.' - Pamela Hansford Johnson

The Magical Dilemma of Victor Neuburg

Ostensibly the classic biography of Victor Neuburg, but in reality, a study of Aleister Crowley and his relationship with one of his most gifted disciples. Neuburg was Crowley's partner in magical rites in the desert and in rites even more dangerous and controversial. This is a document of one of this century's most creative magickal partnerships. Over a period of 8 years it charts Neuburg's and Crowley's ground-breaking magical experiments in sexual magick, with Dee's Enochian system, and more.

Jean Overton Fuller

About

Books

Join the club