A Free-Spirited Woman: The London Diaries of Gladys Langford, 1936-1940 (London Record Society, 50) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0900952555 ISBN 13: 9780900952555

Publisher: London Record Society, 2014

Synopsis

Gladys Langford (born in 1890) was a free spirit, an aspiring writer (though not published in her lifetime), an inveterate attender of plays, concerts, and films, and an astute and sometimes acerbic observer of everyday life in 1930s London. Married in 1913 (the marriage was later annulled), and chained as she saw it to schoolteaching for most of her adult life, Gladys's days were sometimes unhappy but also full of incident, and featured a relationship with a longstanding but married lover, who was often on her mind. Gladys's writing is crisp, colourful, and often biting. Her diary, from 1936 to 1940, while frequently introspective and full of self-doubts, is also a vivid portrait of social life. She writes of her quirky friends, her family and straightened family background, her schoolboys in Hoxton, and her numerous Jewish acquaintances. She also has much to say about London's public world - the behaviour of theatre audiences, street entertainers, anti-Semitic outbursts, the roller-coaster moods of people living through 1939, and fears of evacuation with the outbreak of war. Patricia and Robert Malcolmson are social historians with a special interest in Mass Observation, women in World War Two, and English diaries written between the 1930s and the 1950s.

About this title

About the Author:

Patricia and Robert Malcolmson are social historians with a special interest in Mass Observation, women in World War Two, and English diaries written between the 1930s and the 1950s.

Review:

(A)n impressive (and well designed) book JOURNAL OF THE ISLINGTON ARCHAEOLOGY & HISTORY SOCIETY

About this edition

• Publisher: London Record Society
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0900952555
• ISBN 13: 9780900952555
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 231
• Editor: Malcolmson Patricia, Malcolmson Robert