Mervyn Jones (writer) explained

Mervyn Jones
Birth Date:	27 February 1922
Birth Place:	Regent's Park, London, England
Death Date:	23 February 2010 (aged 87)
Occupation:	Writer
Education:	Abbotsholme School
Alma Mater:	New York University
Notableworks:	John and Mary, Holding On, Today The Struggle
Spouse:	Jeanne Urquhart (1948–1990)
Children:	Conrad Jones, Marian Jones and Jaqueline Jones
Relatives:	Ernest Jones (father)

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

Mervyn Jones wrote 29 novels (five unpublished),^[3] including John and Mary (1966), the basis for the 1969 film,^[4] and Holding On (1973), which was adapted for television in 1977.^[5]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

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)

External links

• Daily Telegraph obituary, 24 February 2010 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/politics-obituaries/7309497/Mervyn-Jones.html
• Guardian obituary

Notes and References

1. Geoffrey Goodman Obituary, The Guardian, 26 February 2010
2. Obituary The Times, 2 March 2010.
3. Web site: Mervyn Jones obituary. TheGuardian.com. 25 February 2010.
4. Web site: Obituary: Mervyn Jones, 1922-2010 Tribune . www.tribunemagazine.org . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20150209193104/http://www.tribunemagazine.org/2010/03/obituary-mervyn-jones-1922-2010/ . 2015-02-09.
5. Web site: Holding on (TV Series 1977–) – IMDb. IMDb.
6. Web site: Mervyn Jones . 2023-01-18 . www.telegraph.co.uk. 24 February 2010 .