The columns were first published as a book in 1939, shortly after the outbreak of war. Struther stopped the regular newspaper columns that year, but wrote a series of letters from Mrs. Miniver, expanding on the character's wartime experiences, that were published in later editions.
The book became an enormous success, especially in the United States, where Struther went on a lecture tour shortly after the book's release. Although the US was still officially neutral, the tribulations of the Miniver family as war with Nazi Germany approached engaged the sympathy of the American public sufficiently that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt credited it for hastening America's involvement in the war, and Winston Churchill claimed that it had done more for the Allied cause that a flotilla of battleships.
The film adaptation of Mrs. Miniver, released in 1942, focused on Mrs. Miniver and her family coping with the early days of World War II. The movie sought to build patriotic sentiment in the light of the war.
The film won six Oscars: