Love in the Blitz

'Her voice is absolutely, beguilingly conversational ... Intelligent, allusive, iconoclastic, captivatingly intense ... This is the news from the domestic frontline: personal, unique, unexpurgated, without propaganda, as it unfolded and was experienced ... Splendid' William Boyd, Guardian

'Her voice is absolutely, beguilingly conversational ... Intelligent, allusive, iconoclastic, captivatingly intense ... This is the news from the domestic frontline: personal, unique, unexpurgated, without propaganda, as it unfolded and was experienced ... Splendid'
William Boyd, Guardian

With the intimacy and wit of a Second World War Bridget Jones, Eileen Alexander offers a portal into life during the Blitz.

Eileen Alexander fell in love amidst the falling of bombs, finding a quotation from poetry at every turn. Graduating from Cambridge in 1939, she had just been injured in a car crash (the man she had a soft spot for was driving) and had firm ambitions of studying further, making herself useful and absolutely not getting married.

Her letters offer a love story and a unique snapshot of the home front, as well as resurrecting the voice of a profoundly funny writer.

'I wonder what anyone would think if they suddenly came across my letters to you & started reading them in chronological order?' Eileen wrote in 1941. 'I think they'd say "This girl never lived till she loved" - and it would be true, darling.'

About the Author

Eileen Alexander was born in Cairo and grew up in a cosmopolitan Jewish family before moving to Cambridge as a student. She graduated from Girton College with a first-class degree in English in 1939, and worked during the Second World War for the civil service in the Air Ministry. Eileen went on to be a teacher, writer and translator, including translating some of Georges Simenon's works.