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Common Knowledge

Canonical name: Jameson, Storm
Legal name: Chapman, Margaret Storm Jameson
Other names: James, Margaret Ethel (birth)
Clarke, Margaret Ethel
Chapman, Margaret Ethel
Chapman, Margaret Ethel Storm
Birthdate: 1891-01-08
Date of death: 1986-09-30
Gender: female
Education: University of Leeds (BA) (English)
King's College, London (MA)
Occupations: critic
novelist
publishing
teacher
journalist
autobiographer
Organizations: American Academy of Arts and Letters ( [1978])
President, British Section, International PEN
National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
International Union of Revolutionary Writers
Peace Pledge Union
Awards and honors: Honorary DLitt., Leeds University (1943)
Relationships: Chapman, Guy (husband)
Brittain, Vera (friend)
Linke, Lilo (friend)
Short biography: Storm Jameson was the pen name of Margaret Storm Jameson Chapman, born in Whitby, Yorkshire. She graduated from the University of Leeds and earned a master's degree from King's College London in 1914. She worked as a teacher for a short time before launching her career as a writer. She had become a socialist and a strong advocate of women suffrage while at Leeds. She became a prolific writer who produced 47 novels, beginning with The Pot Boils (1919) plus plays, nonfiction books, poems, essays, biographies, memoirs, and her two volumes of autobiography, No Time Like the Present (1933) and Journey from the North (1969). After the end of an early and brief first marriage, she married Guy Chapman, also a writer, in 1926. In the early 1930s, she began a close friendship with Vera Brittain, who had also lost a brother in World War I and shared her pacifist views. Jameson was active in British politics for many year and was a member of the National Union of Women Suffrage Societies, the Peace Pledge Union, and the International Union of Revolutionary Writers. She was a longtime president of International PEN.
Nationality: UK
Birthplace: Whitby, Yorkshire, England, UK
Places of residence: Whitby, Yorkshire, England, UK
London, England, UK
Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England, UK
Place of death: Little Paxton, St Neots, England, UK
Associated Place (for map): England, UK

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20 reviews

iansales 919 reviews

The Road from the Monument by Storm Jameson

An odd book, and perhaps even more odd because Jameson is such a good writer. Greg Mott is a highly-regarded author, and the director of an artistic institute. He came from humble beginnings – his father was a destitute ex-seaman, and – the shame! – he graduated from Sheffield University – but he has made something of himself, a great man of letters, with important friends and acquaintances. I have to wonder if Mott were based on Evelyn Waugh, although Waugh went to Oxford. The Road show more from the Monument opens with the retirement of a public school teacher – he’s been there sixty years, wasn’t even qualified when he started, and has been paid a pittance throughout his tenure. The teacher spotted Mott’s potential early, and spoent his own money to put Mott through university. After leaving the school, he goes down to London to see what Mott has made of himself – and realises that Mott’s intelligence and wisdom pretty much skin-deep. He goes back gom edisappointed. The story then focuses on Mott’s second-in-command, Lambert Corry, his best friend at school, who went to Oxford, became a civil servant, rose through the ranks but then resigned to take up a position at the institute. Unlike Mott, he is not a successful author. Although the plot of The Road from the Monument is ostensibly about the scandal which hovers over Mott after he picks up a young woman while on holiday in Nice and gets her pregnant, it reads more like a poison pen letter from Jameson to the UK’s literary set. Most of the characters are writers of varying degrees of success, and James sticks the knife into every one. I tweeted a quote from the book while reading it, and it’s one of the mildest characterisations in the book of one of its cast: “they always gave him credit for honesty and integrity, the virtues of a moth-eaten writer. He got what he deserved – respect and neglect”. The upper class are also depicted as sociopaths (which I suspect they are, anyway; as are the plutocrats), and, in fact, no one in this novel is at all sympathetic… except perhaps the young woman who is made pregnant by Mott. Not a pleasant book to read (I’m not doing too well in that respect in this post), and Jameson does over-do the interiority… but she’s nonetheless a sharp writer, and I plan to further explore her oeuvre. show less

May 10, 2016

snash 793 reviews

There will be a short interval by Storm Jameson

Anticipation of a possible impending death, compels SJ to review his life and be struck by his inability to comprehend or feel closeness to family or colleagues, to recognize his failures and aloneness while also realizing that his will to live was fueled by the ecstasy of the simple beauty of the world.

Dec 13, 2023

LizzieD 188 reviews

Company Parade (Virago modern classics) by Storm Jameson

Company Parade is the story of Hervey Russell, who leaves her little son at the end of the First World War, in order to make a better home for him and to give him the opportunities he deserves. She gets a job as an advertising copy writer on the basis of a first novel and manages to endure separation by working and by spending time with two old friends (Class of 1913), Philip and T.S. Hervey is a person of contradictions: brilliant, defiantly shy, ambitious, passionate, self-assertive, show more almost pathetically diffident and placating. She shares her friends' radicalism; she anticipates and fears her husband's demobilization; she misses her son; she yearns and determines to make her mark in the world. The novel expands around Hervey into the lives of other equally interesting characters.
Jameson's prose is lovely - quiet and individual with arresting turns of phrase which do not interrupt the narrative flow. I'm struck by a short paragraph in which Hervey is walking to interview for a job. "When the day came she put on a newly bought hat. This was a mistake." The paragraph progresses as Hervey walks slowly and rehearses her answers to questions until we read, "Here she caught sight of herself in a shop window in Mount Street and straightened her hat. It is easy to imagine that you are a success; it is not so easy to imagine that your hat is on straight when it is in fact over one ear." This perfectly captures the vulnerability of a talented, insecure young woman, and I find it wonderful.
Company Parade was intended to be the first of five or six novels in which Storm Jameson would "depict the contemporary scene," that of England following WWI. In the end she wrote only three books, saying "The deep reason why I abandoned Mirror in Darkness {her title for the series}... was a stifled instinct that I was working against the grain of my talent." Whatever she meant, I felt none of the characters really came to life. They were complex, believable, interesting, but lacking some spark of vitality without which a book never becomes an alternate reality. I will certainly read the other two books in the series and am very happy to have discovered Storm Jameson. show less

Dec 17, 20113 other reviews

lauralkeet 1,218 reviews

Company Parade by Storm Jameson

Company Parade begins just after the Armistice. Hervey Russell has left her home in the north of England to work in a London advertising firm, while her husband Penn finishes his military service. Her very young son Richard remains at home, cared for by others. Penn turns out to be an immature jerk: he delays the end of his military career, missing out on job vacancies snatched up by others returning from the front; he carries on with another woman; he treats Hervey poorly. Hervey is a show more writer, and her attempts to establish a literary career are painful to read. She has a network of friends, mostly male, and all are reeling from losing loved ones in the war.

The story continues over a 5-year period with Penn becoming even more of a jerk and Hervey still struggling. She had grounds for divorce but wouldn't do it, even though she was tremendously unhappy being with him. She frustrated me that way. There are some beautiful passages in this novel -- I especially liked an entire chapter devoted to how various characters marked the two minute silence.

I've rated this book a grudging 3 stars because the writing is absolutely gorgeous. But that wasn't enough for me. I found myself falling asleep in my reading chair, avoiding reading, and/or forcing myself to read. Well, that's just wrong, isn't it? show less

Nov 21, 20133 other reviews

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