Career
Frankau served in the British Army from the outbreak of war in 1914, first in the 9th Battalion of the East Surrey Regiment, and then (with the rank of Captain) as a gunner in the 107th Brigade of the Royal Field Artillery – experiences that he later used in novels. He fought in major battles of the British Expeditionary Force in France and wrote for the Wipers Times before being invalided out and given a posting in Italy. The family business not having survived the war, he became a writer.
His novels, while having conventional romantic content, also contained material from his own conservative politics and meditations on Jewish identity in the climate of the times. Some of them were filmed (see Christopher Strong; If I Marry Again was based on a short story). His status as a divorcé (he married three times) frustrated his political ambitions - the Conservative Party of the time did not regard divorce as acceptable. His outspoken criticism of Stanley Baldwin also did nothing to endear him to the Tory leadership. He notoriously wrote a 1933 article "As a Jew I am not Against Hitler" for the Daily Express, shortly after Adolf Hitler had come to power in Germany; he later retracted his position.
Few of his works have survived in reputation.
Read more about this topic: Gilbert Frankau
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