''Clash'' is a 1929

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...

by the English socialist politician

Ellen Wilkinson Ellen Cicely Wilkinson (8 October 1891 – 6 February 1947) was a British Labour Party politician who served as Minister of Education from July 1945 until her death. Earlier in her career, as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Jarrow, s ...

. It focuses on the clash between career and

personal relationship An intimate relationship is an interpersonal relationship that involves physical or emotional intimacy. Although an intimate relationship is commonly a sexual relationship, it may also be a non-sexual relationship involving family, friends, or ...

s, against the backdrop of the

1926 general strike The 1926 general strike in the United Kingdom was a general strike that lasted nine days, from 4 to 12 May 1926. It was called by the General Council of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in an unsuccessful attempt to force the British governm ...

. Beers, L. (2011), Feminism and Sexuality in Ellen Wilkinson's Fiction, '' Parliamentary Affairs'', Vol. 64 No. 2, 2011, 248–262 It was Wilkinson's first novel. It was republished by Trent Editions with a new introduction by Ian Haywood and Maroula Joannou in 1998. and is still in print. Ellen Wilkinson, the first woman Labour MP, is best remembered for leading a march of the unemployed from her constituency in Jarrow to London in 1936. Her first novel Clash is set a decade earlier, during the General Strike when Wilkinson was sent as an accredited representative of the TUC to tour the country drumming up support of the strikers. The novel is a work of romantic fiction. It is semi autobiographical and book bears all the hall marks of her first-hand experience of the strike including descriptions of the time she spent with the women in the Yorkshire coal fields during the lock-out of 1926 which followed the strike.

References

1929 British novels 1929 debut novels British romance novels Proletarian literature Contemporary romance novels George G. Harrap and Co. books {{1920s-romance-novel-stub