Life

Mary Borden was born into a wealthy Chicago family. She attended Vassar College

Vassar College

Vassar College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York, in the United States. The Vassar campus comprises over and more than 100 buildings, including four National Historic Landmarks, ranging in style from Collegiate Gothic to International,...

, graduating with a B.A. in 1907. In 1908 she married George Douglas Turner, with whom she had three daughters; Joyce (born 1909), Comfort (born 1910) and Mary (born 1914). She was living in England in 1914 at the outbreak of the war and used her own money to equip and staff a field hospital close to the Front in which she herself served as a nurse from 1915 until the end of the war. It was there she met Brigadier General

Brigadier General

Brigadier general is a senior rank in the armed forces. It is the lowest ranking general officer in some countries, usually sitting between the ranks of colonel and major general. When appointed to a field command, a brigadier general is typically in command of a brigade consisting of around 4,000...

 Edward Louis Spears, who became her second husband, in 1918, following the dissolution of her first marriage. Despite her considerable social commitments as the wife of a prominent diplomat, she continued a successful career as a writer. During her war-time experience she wrote poetry such as 'The Song of the Mud' (1917). Notably, her work includes a striking set of sketches and short stories, The Forbidden Zone (1929), which was published in the same year as A Farewell to Arms

A Farewell to Arms

A Farewell to Arms is a semi-autobiographical novel written by Ernest Hemingway concerning events during the Italian campaigns during the First World War. The book, which was first published in 1929, is a first-person account of American Frederic Henry, serving as a Lieutenant in the ambulance...

, Good-Bye to All That and All Quiet on the Western Front

All Quiet on the Western Front

All Quiet on the Western Front is a novel by Erich Maria Remarque, a German veteran of World War I. The book describes the German soldiers' extreme physical and mental stress during the war, and the detachment from civilian life felt by many of these soldiers upon returning home from the front.The...

. Even in this context, contemporary readers were disturbed at the graphic, sometimes hallucinatory, quality of this work coming from a woman's pen.

Her 1937 novel Action for Slander

Action for Slander (novel)

Action for Slander is a drama novel by the Anglo-American writer Mary Borden.It was first published in 1937 by Harper. A British army officer faces disgrace when he is falsely accused of cheating at cards by a fellow officer whose wife he has had an affair with.-Adaptation:The novel was turned into...

was adapted into a film

Action for Slander

Action for Slander is a 1937 British drama film directed by Tim Whelan and starring Clive Brook, Ann Todd and Googie Withers. An army officer is falsely accused at cheating at cards by a man whose wife he had an affair with and struggles to clear his name...

 the same year.

Living in England between the wars, she was drawn back to France in the expectation of mounting some sort of aid facility similar to that she had run in the first war. With funds donated by Sir Robert Hadfield via his wife, Lady Hadfield, she set up the Hadfield-Spears Ambulance Unit

Hadfield-Spears Ambulance Unit

The Hadfield-Spears Ambulance Unit was an Anglo-French volunteer medical unit which served initially with the 4th French army in Lorraine, eastern France, during the Second World War from February 1940 until it was forced to retreat on 9 June ahead of the German advance. Its official French...

, which was based in Lorraine

Lorraine (province)

The Duchy of Upper Lorraine was an historical duchy roughly corresponding with the present-day northeastern Lorraine region of France, including parts of modern Luxembourg and Germany. The main cities were Metz, Verdun, and the historic capital Nancy....

 until forced by the German Blitzkrieg

Blitzkrieg

For other uses of the word, see: Blitzkrieg Blitzkrieg is an anglicized word describing all-motorised force concentration of tanks, infantry, artillery, combat engineers and air power, concentrating overwhelming force at high speed to break through enemy lines, and, once the lines are broken,...

 to retreat across France before its evacuation from Arcachon

Arcachon

Arcachon is a commune in the Gironde department in southwestern France.It is a popular bathing location on the Atlantic coast southwest of Bordeaux in the Landes forest...

 in June 1940. In Britain, the unit re-grouped and received further funding from the British War Relief Society

British War Relief Society

The British War Relief Society was a US-based humanitarian umbrella organisation dealing with the supply of non-military aid such as food, clothes, medical supplies and financial aid to people in Great Britain during the early years of the Second World War...

 in New York. In May 1941, the Hadfield-Spears Ambulance Unit

Hadfield-Spears Ambulance Unit

The Hadfield-Spears Ambulance Unit was an Anglo-French volunteer medical unit which served initially with the 4th French army in Lorraine, eastern France, during the Second World War from February 1940 until it was forced to retreat on 9 June ahead of the German advance. Its official French...

 was attached to the Free French in the Middle East, before accompanying their forces across North Africa, Italy and France. Journey Down a Blind Alley, published on her return to Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 in 1946, records the history of the unit and her disillusion with the French failure to put up an effective resistance to the German invasion and occupation.

A first person account of Lady Spears and the Hadfield-Spears Ambulance Unit

Hadfield-Spears Ambulance Unit

The Hadfield-Spears Ambulance Unit was an Anglo-French volunteer medical unit which served initially with the 4th French army in Lorraine, eastern France, during the Second World War from February 1940 until it was forced to retreat on 9 June ahead of the German advance. Its official French...

 can be found in To War with Whitacker, The Wartime Diaries of the Countess of Ranfurly 1939-45. ISBN 0 7493 1954 2

Works

• Three Pilgrims and a Tinker (1924)
• Flamingo (1927)
• Four O'clock (1927)
• The Forbidden Zone (1929) OCLC: 1852756
• Jehovah's Day (1929)
• A Woman with White Eyes (1930)
• Sarah Gay (1931)
• Action for Slander
  Action for Slander (novel)
  Action for Slander is a drama novel by the Anglo-American writer Mary Borden.It was first published in 1937 by Harper. A British army officer faces disgrace when he is falsely accused of cheating at cards by a fellow officer whose wife he has had an affair with.-Adaptation:The novel was turned into...
  
  (1937)
• Journey Down a Blind Alley (1946)