Our story begins with the birth of Mary Hanskye in 1841 as the Industrial Revolution is changing the face of pastoral England. While still a child, Mary comes under the influence of her uncle, one of England's great shipbuilders. Soon she is a young woman involved in a loveless marriage arranged by a father she has hardly known. Though tragedy and disappointment follow her like shadows, The Lovely Ship is a story of the survival of a strong woman as we follow her through marriage, childbearing, family crisis, and her ultimate ascent to the throne of power in the great shipbuilding company.

Storm Jameson (1891- 1986) born to a North Yorkshire family of shipbuilders. Jameson's fiery mother, who bore three girls, encouraged Storm (christened Margaret Storm) to pursue an academic education. After being taught privately and at Scarborough municipal school she won one of three county scholarships which enabled her to read English Literature at Leeds University. She then went on to complete an MA in European Drama at King's College London. During her career Jameson wrote forty-five novels, numerous pamphlets, essays, and reviews, in an effort to make money. Her personal life suffered, and her first marriage to schoolmaster Charles Douglas Clarke was an unhappy one. After they divorced in 1925, Jameson went on to marry Guy Chapman, a fellow author, and remained with him despite her apparent rejection of normal domestic life. Storm Jameson was always politically active, helping to publish a Marxist journal in the British section of the International Union of Revolutionary Writers in 1934 and attending anti-fascist rallies.