Alexander Baron
Encyclopedia
Alexander Baron was a British author and screenwriter. He is best known for his highly acclaimed novel about D-Day entitled From the City from the Plough (1948) and his London novel The Lowlife (1963).
of London
in 1908 and later worked as a furrier. Alexander Baron was born in Maidenhead
and raised in the Hackney
district of London. He attended Hackney Downs School
.
, Baron was a leading activist and organiser of the Labour League of Youth (at that time aligned with the Communist Party
), campaigning against the fascists
in the streets of the East End
. Baron became increasingly disillusioned with far left politics as he spoke to International Brigade fighters returning from the Spanish Civil War
, and finally broke with the communists after the Hitler–Stalin Pact
of August 1939.
Baron served in the Pioneer Corps of the British Army
during World War II
, experiencing fierce fighting in the Italian campaign
, Normandy and in Northern France and Belgium
. As a pioneer, he was among the first Allied troops to be landed in Sicily
, Italy and on D-Day
.
before publishing his first novel From the City from the Plough (1948). At this time, at the behest of his publisher Jonathan Cape
, he also changed his name from Bernstein to Baron.
As well as continuing to write novels (for a list of his works, see below), in the 1950s Baron wrote screenplays for Hollywood, and by the 1960s he had become a regular writer on BBC's Play for Today
. He wrote several episodes of the A Family at War
series: 'The Breach in the Dyke' (1970), 'Brothers in War' (1970), 'A Lesson in War' (1970), 'Believed Killed' (1971), 'The Lost Ones' (1971), and 'Two Fathers' (1972). Later he became well known for drama serials like Poldark
and A Horseman Riding By
, and in the 1980s for BBC
classic literary adaptions including Sense And Sensibility
(1981), Jane Eyre
(1983), Oliver Twist
(1985) and Vanity Fair
(1987). He contributed several episodes to Granada Television's The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1984–1985). An extensive list of Baron's television work can be found at .
Baron's personal papers are held in the archives of the University of Reading
. His wartime letters and unpublished memoirs were used by the historian Sean Longden
for his book To the Victor the Spoils, a social history of the British Army
between D Day and VE Day. Baron has also been the subject of essays by Iain Sinclair
and Ken Worpole.
Since Baron's death in December 1999 his novels have been republished several times, testifying to a strong resurgence of interest among in his work among the reading public as well as among critics and academics. These include Baron's first book, the war novel From the City, From the Plough (Black Spring Press, 2010); his cult novel about the London underworld of the early 1960s, The Lowlife (Harvill, 2001; Black Spring Press, 2010), which was cited in Jon Savage’s England’s Dreaming as a literary antecedent of punk; King Dido (Five Leaves, 2009), a story of the violent rise and fall of an East End London gangster in Edwardian England; Rosie Hogarth (Five Leaves, 2010); and his second war novel There's No Home, the story of a love affair between a British soldier and Sicilian woman in a lull in the fierce fighting of the Italian campaign (Sort Of Books, 2011). Baron's third work based on his wartime experiences, The Human Kind, will be republished by Black Spring Press in autumn 2011. Several of his novels are attracting the attention of film producers.
Film screenplays
Early life
His father was Barnet Bernstein, a Polish-Jewish immigrant to Britain who settled in the East EndEast End of London
The East End of London, also known simply as the East End, is the area of London, England, United Kingdom, east of the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames. Although not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries, the River Lea can be considered another boundary...
of London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in 1908 and later worked as a furrier. Alexander Baron was born in Maidenhead
Maidenhead
Maidenhead is a town and unparished area within the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, in Berkshire, England. It lies on the River Thames and is situated west of Charing Cross in London.-History:...
and raised in the Hackney
London Borough of Hackney
The London Borough of Hackney is a London borough of North/North East London, and forms part of inner London. The local authority is Hackney London Borough Council....
district of London. He attended Hackney Downs School
Hackney Downs School
Hackney Downs School was a comprehensive secondary school, located near Hackney Downs off the A104 north of Hackney town centre, in the London Borough of Hackney.-Grocers' Company's School:...
.
Politics and wartime
During the 1930s, with his schoolfriend Ted WillisTed Willis
Edward Henry Willis, Baron Willis , commonly known as Ted Willis, was a British television dramatist who was also politically active in support of the Labour Party.-Political life:...
, Baron was a leading activist and organiser of the Labour League of Youth (at that time aligned with the Communist Party
Communist party
A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...
), campaigning against the fascists
British Union of Fascists
The British Union was a political party in the United Kingdom formed in 1932 by Sir Oswald Mosley as the British Union of Fascists, in 1936 it changed its name to the British Union of Fascists and National Socialists and then in 1937 to simply the British Union...
in the streets of the East End
Battle of Cable Street
The Battle of Cable Street took place on Sunday 4 October 1936 in Cable Street in the East End of London. It was a clash between the Metropolitan Police, overseeing a march by the British Union of Fascists, led by Oswald Mosley, and anti-fascists, including local Jewish, socialist, anarchist,...
. Baron became increasingly disillusioned with far left politics as he spoke to International Brigade fighters returning from the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
, and finally broke with the communists after the Hitler–Stalin Pact
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, was an agreement officially titled the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union and signed in Moscow in the late hours of 23 August 1939...
of August 1939.
Baron served in the Pioneer Corps of the British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, experiencing fierce fighting in the Italian campaign
Italian Campaign (World War II)
The Italian Campaign of World War II was the name of Allied operations in and around Italy, from 1943 to the end of the war in Europe. Joint Allied Forces Headquarters AFHQ was operationally responsible for all Allied land forces in the Mediterranean theatre, and it planned and commanded the...
, Normandy and in Northern France and Belgium
Operation Cobra
Operation Cobra was the codename for an offensive launched by the First United States Army seven weeks after the D-Day landings, during the Normandy Campaign of World War II...
. As a pioneer, he was among the first Allied troops to be landed in Sicily
Allied invasion of Sicily
The Allied invasion of Sicily, codenamed Operation Husky, was a major World War II campaign, in which the Allies took Sicily from the Axis . It was a large scale amphibious and airborne operation, followed by six weeks of land combat. It launched the Italian Campaign.Husky began on the night of...
, Italy and on D-Day
D-Day
D-Day is a term often used in military parlance to denote the day on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated. "D-Day" often represents a variable, designating the day upon which some significant event will occur or has occurred; see Military designation of days and hours for similar...
.
Writing career
He used his wartime experiences as the basis for his three best-selling war novels. After the war he became assistant editor of TribuneTribune (magazine)
Tribune is a democratic socialist weekly, founded in 1937 published in London. It is independent but supports the Labour Party from the left...
before publishing his first novel From the City from the Plough (1948). At this time, at the behest of his publisher Jonathan Cape
Jonathan Cape
Jonathan Cape was a London-based publisher founded in 1919 as "Page & Co" by Herbert Jonathan Cape , formerly a manager at Duckworth who had worked his way up from a position of bookshop errand boy. Cape brought with him the rights to cheap editions of the popular author Elinor Glyn and sales of...
, he also changed his name from Bernstein to Baron.
As well as continuing to write novels (for a list of his works, see below), in the 1950s Baron wrote screenplays for Hollywood, and by the 1960s he had become a regular writer on BBC's Play for Today
Play for Today
Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted...
. He wrote several episodes of the A Family at War
A Family At War
A Family At War is a British drama series that aired on ITV from 1970 to 1972. It was created by John Finch and made by Granada Television for ITV. The director was David Giles....
series: 'The Breach in the Dyke' (1970), 'Brothers in War' (1970), 'A Lesson in War' (1970), 'Believed Killed' (1971), 'The Lost Ones' (1971), and 'Two Fathers' (1972). Later he became well known for drama serials like Poldark
Poldark
Poldark is a BBC television series based on the novels written by Winston Graham which was first transmitted in the UK between 1975 and 1977.-Outline:...
and A Horseman Riding By
A Horseman Riding By
A Horseman Riding By is a 1966 novel by R. F. Delderfield that starts in 1902 at the tail end of the Boer War and is continued in the sequel to end in the summer of 1965. It is set in Devon in the early 20th century. It was to some extent an elegy for the traditional society which was blown apart...
, and in the 1980s for BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
classic literary adaptions including Sense And Sensibility
Sense and Sensibility (1981 TV serial)
Sense and Sensibility is a 1981 BBC television adaptation of Jane Austen's novel. The seven-part series was dramatized by Alexander Baron, and directed by Rodney Bennett....
(1981), Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre (1983 TV serial)
Jane Eyre is a 1983 British television serial adaptation of Charlotte Brontë's novel of the same name, produced by BBC and directed by Julian Amyes. The serial stars Zelah Clarke as the title character, and Timothy Dalton as Edward Rochester...
(1983), Oliver Twist
Oliver Twist (1985 TV miniseries)
Oliver Twist is a 1985 BBC TV serial. It was directed by Gareth Davies, and adapted by Alexander Baron from the novel by Charles Dickens. It follows the book very closely.- Cast :*Eric Porter - Fagin*Michael Attwell - Bill Sikes...
(1985) and Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair (1987 TV serial)
Vanity Fair was a BBC Pebble Mill Production consisting of 16 half-hour episodes. Shot on location and in studio. Locations included Winchester and Thetford. Virtually all the interiors where shot in Studio A at Pebble Mill....
(1987). He contributed several episodes to Granada Television's The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1984–1985). An extensive list of Baron's television work can be found at .
Baron's personal papers are held in the archives of the University of Reading
University of Reading
The University of Reading is a university in the English town of Reading, Berkshire. The University was established in 1892 as University College, Reading and received its Royal Charter in 1926. It is based on several campuses in, and around, the town of Reading.The University has a long tradition...
. His wartime letters and unpublished memoirs were used by the historian Sean Longden
Sean Longden
Sean Longden is an author and historian who specialises in previously untold stories from World War II , mostly sourced from interviews with veterans...
for his book To the Victor the Spoils, a social history of the British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
between D Day and VE Day. Baron has also been the subject of essays by Iain Sinclair
Iain Sinclair
Iain Sinclair FRSL is a British writer and filmmaker. Much of his work is rooted in London, most recently within the influences of psychogeography.-Life and work:...
and Ken Worpole.
Since Baron's death in December 1999 his novels have been republished several times, testifying to a strong resurgence of interest among in his work among the reading public as well as among critics and academics. These include Baron's first book, the war novel From the City, From the Plough (Black Spring Press, 2010); his cult novel about the London underworld of the early 1960s, The Lowlife (Harvill, 2001; Black Spring Press, 2010), which was cited in Jon Savage’s England’s Dreaming as a literary antecedent of punk; King Dido (Five Leaves, 2009), a story of the violent rise and fall of an East End London gangster in Edwardian England; Rosie Hogarth (Five Leaves, 2010); and his second war novel There's No Home, the story of a love affair between a British soldier and Sicilian woman in a lull in the fierce fighting of the Italian campaign (Sort Of Books, 2011). Baron's third work based on his wartime experiences, The Human Kind, will be republished by Black Spring Press in autumn 2011. Several of his novels are attracting the attention of film producers.
Works
Novels- From the City from the Plough (1948) a novel about the fictional 5th Battalion of the Wessex Regiment British ArmyBritish ArmyThe British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
. The novel takes place in the weeks leading up to D Day and during the NormandyNormandyNormandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is in France.The continental territory covers 30,627 km² and forms the preponderant part of Normandy and roughly 5% of the territory of France. It is divided for administrative purposes into two régions:...
campaign. It was widely believed that the battalion was based on units of the 43rd Wessex Division and its attacks on Hill 112Hill 112Operation Jupiter was an attack launched by the British Second Army's VIII Corps on 10 July 1944. The objective of the attack was to capture the villages of Baron-sur-Odon, Fontaine-Étoupefour, Chateau de Fontaine and recapture Hill 112. Following the capture of these objectives the Corps would...
and Mont PinconMont PinçonMont Pinçon is the highest point of the département of Calvados, in Normandy, with an elevation of . It is in the west of Swiss Normandy about to the south-west of Caen, near the village of Plessis-Grimoult....
in Normandy. This novel was re-issued by London publisher Black Spring PressBlack Spring PressBlack Spring Press is an independent English publishing house, founded in 1985. The initial published works were lyric and poetry collections by musicians Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen. They have also published Off the Road by Carolyn Cassady, and Nick Cave's debut novel And the Ass Saw the Angel...
in June 2010. - There's No Home (1950) - On the interaction of wartime British soldiers with the people of CataniaCataniaCatania is an Italian city on the east coast of Sicily facing the Ionian Sea, between Messina and Syracuse. It is the capital of the homonymous province, and with 298,957 inhabitants it is the second-largest city in Sicily and the tenth in Italy.Catania is known to have a seismic history and...
, SicilySicilySicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
, focusing on a doomed love affair. Two stanzas of Hamish HendersonHamish HendersonHamish Scott Henderson, was a Scottish poet, songwriter, soldier, and intellectual....
's The 51st Highland Division's Farewell to Sicily serve as the motto. Republished by Sort Of Books in June 2011. Discussions concerning a film adaptation of this novel are currently in progress. - Rosie Hogarth (1951), set in London. Republished by Five Leaves Press in 2010.
- With Hope, Farewell (1952), set in London.
- The Human Kind (1953). The third in Baron's 'War Trilogy'. This was a collection of short stories that were based upon the author's own wartime experiences. The book was later filmed as The VictorsThe Victors (film)-Overview:The film follows a group of U.S. soldiers through Europe during World War II, from Britain in 1942, through the fierce fighting in Italy and France, to the uneasy peace of Berlin. It is adapted from a collection of short stories called The Human Kind by British author Alexander Baron,...
(1963), with the British characters changed into Americans in order to attract American audiences. - The Golden Princess (1954), about La MalincheLa MalincheLa Malinche , known also as Malintzin, Malinalli or Doña Marina, was a Nahua woman from the Mexican Gulf Coast, who played a role in the Spanish conquest of Mexico, acting as interpreter, advisor, lover and intermediary for Hernán Cortés...
. - Queen of the East (1956), an historical novel about ZenobiaZenobiaZenobia was a 3rd-century Queen of the Palmyrene Empire in Roman Syria. She led a famous revolt against the Roman Empire. The second wife of King Septimius Odaenathus, Zenobia became queen of the Palmyrene Empire following Odaenathus' death in 267...
, Queen of the short lived Palmyrene EmpirePalmyrene EmpireThe Palmyrene Empire was a splinter empire, that broke off of the Roman Empire during the Crisis of the Third Century. It encompassed the Roman provinces of Syria Palaestina, Egypt and large parts of Asia Minor....
, and her antagonist AurelianAurelianAurelian , was Roman Emperor from 270 to 275. During his reign, he defeated the Alamanni after a devastating war. He also defeated the Goths, Vandals, Juthungi, Sarmatians, and Carpi. Aurelian restored the Empire's eastern provinces after his conquest of the Palmyrene Empire in 273. The following...
, Emperor of Rome. - Seeing Life (1958),
- The Lowlife (1963), set in HackneyLondon Borough of HackneyThe London Borough of Hackney is a London borough of North/North East London, and forms part of inner London. The local authority is Hackney London Borough Council....
, is "a riotous, off-beat novel about gamblers, prostitutes and lay-abouts of London's East End". Re-issued by Black Spring PressBlack Spring PressBlack Spring Press is an independent English publishing house, founded in 1985. The initial published works were lyric and poetry collections by musicians Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen. They have also published Off the Road by Carolyn Cassady, and Nick Cave's debut novel And the Ass Saw the Angel...
in June 2010. Discussions concerning a film adaptation of this novel are currently in progress. - Strip Jack Naked (1966), sequel to The Lowlife
- King Dido (1969), set in the East End in 1911. In autumn 2009 this was re-issued in New London Editions, an imprint of Five Leaves Press. Discussions concerning a film adaptation of this novel are currently in progress.
- The In-Between Time (1971)
- Gentle Folk (1976); adapted as television drama (1980)
- Franco Is Dying (1977)
Film screenplays
- The Siege Of Sidney Street
- Robbery Under Arms
External links
- Alexander Baron at Find-A-Grave
- Web-site dedicated to Alexander Baron's work by Andrew Whitehead.
- A detailed look at Alexander Baron's first London novel, 'Rosie Hogarth', set in Islington
- Review of 2010 edition of The Lowlife by Andrew Stevens in 3:am magazine