''London Pride'' is a 1941 novel by the British writer

Phyllis Bottome Phyllis Forbes Dennis ( ; 31 May 1884 – 22 August 1963) was a British novelist and short story writer. Life and career Bottome was born in 1882, in Rochester, Kent, the daughter of an American clergyman, Rev. William MacDonald Bottome, and a ...

. It takes place in wartime

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

and follows an

East End The East End of London, often referred to within the London area simply as the East End, is the historic core of wider East London, east of the Roman and medieval walls of the City of London and north of the River Thames. It does not have uni ...

family during the height of

The Blitz The Blitz was a German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom in 1940 and 1941, during the Second World War. The term was first used by the British press and originated from the term , the German word meaning 'lightning war'. The Germa ...

during the summer of 1940. It is seen through the eyes of a seven year old boy Ben, named after

Big Ben Big Ben is the nickname for the Great Bell of the Great Clock of Westminster, at the north end of the Palace of Westminster in London, England, and the name is frequently extended to refer also to the clock and the clock tower. The officia ...

, whose mother is a

charwoman A charwoman (also chargirl, charlady or char) is an old-fashioned occupational term, referring to a paid part-time worker who comes into a house or other building to clean it for a few hours of a day or week, as opposed to a maid, who usually ...

and his father is a docker. During the novel his neighbours are killed in an air raid and his own house bombed before he is eventually evacuated to the countryside at the conclusion.Calder p.195

References

Bibliography

* Calder, Robert L. ''Beware the British Serpent: The Role of Writers in British Propaganda in the United States, 1939-1945''. McGill-Queen's Press, 2004. * Welsh, Dave. ''Underground Writing: The London Tube from George Gissing to Virginia Woolf''. Liverpool University Press, 2010. 1941 British novels Novels by Phyllis Bottome Novels set in London Novels set during World War II Faber and Faber books {{1940s-WWII-novel-stub