Mervyn Jones Biography

British novelist, short-story writer, and journalist, son of Ernest Jones, the biographer of Freud; he is a former assistant editor of Tribune (1955–60) and of the New Statesman (1966–8). The background of his fiction reflects twentieth-century social and political issues, which are examined from a left-wing perspective, whilst the stories themselves focus on human relationships. A prolific writer, his work has an underlying commitment to the struggle of the working class. It includes No Time To Be Young (1952), The Last Barricade (1953), John and Mary (1966), and, notably, Holding On (1973, adapted for television), which portrays the heroic struggles of a family in the East End of London and the breakdown of their culture as they endure the major economic and social changes of the century. Later novels include Today The Struggle (1978), Coming Home (1986), and That Year in Paris (1988). He has also written the biographies A Radical Life: The Biography of Megan Lloyd George, 1902–1966 (1991) and Michael Foot (1994).