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Good-Bye
To All That: An Autobiography
by Robert Graves
The quintessential memoir of the generation of Englishmen who suffered
in World War I is among the bitterest autobiographies ever written. Robert
Graves's stripped-to-the-bone prose seethes with contempt for his class,
his country, his military superiors and the civilians who mindlessly cheered
the carnage from the safety of home. His portrait of the stupidity and
petty cruelties endemic in England's elite schools is almost as scathing
as his depiction of trench warfare. Nothing could equal Graves's bone-chilling
litany of meaningless death, horrific encounters with gruesomely decaying
corpses and even more appalling confrontations with the callousness and
arrogance of the military command. Yet this scarifying book is consistently
enthralling. Graves is a superb storyteller and there's clearly something
liberating about burning all your bridges at 34 (his age when "Good-Bye
To All That" was first published in 1929). He conveys that feeling of exhilaration
to his readers in a pell-mell rush of words that remains supremely lucid.
Better known as a poet, historical novelist and critic, Graves in this
one work seems more like an English Hemingway, paring his prose to the
minimum and eschewing all editorializing because it would bring him down
to the level of the phrase- and war-mongers he despises. --Wendy
Smith - Amazon.com
All
For Heaven, Hell, Or Hoboken: The World War I Diary and Letters of Clair
M. Pfennig, Flash Ranger, Company D, 29 Engineers, A.E.F.
by Anthony Finan
From the Back Cover On September 26, 1918, the American Expeditionary
Force initiated an attack on German lines in France that would turn into
the most prolonged battle in U.S. history. The Meuse-Argonne Operation
lasted 47 days and involved over 1.2 million troops. So convinced the offensive
would bring about a final German defeat, General John J. Pershing, Commander
of the A.E.F., commented that his troops would meet their final destiny
by Christmas--Heaven, Hell, or Hoboken. Indeed, he was right. The Meuse-Argonne
Operation ended in the signing of the Armistice on November 11.
Eighty years ago, over 3 million American men were inducted into service
to fight in the Great War. Private Clair M. Pfennig was one of those men.
Based upon Private Pfennig's personal diary and published letters, All
for Heaven, Hell, or Hoboken provides an intimate portrait of World War
I from the perspective of a typical American soldier. Augmented with explanatory
passages, photographs and maps, All for Heaven, Hell, or Hoboken also serves
as an interesting source of information about a war that today seems to
have passed from America's collective memory.
Paperback: 243 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.75 x
8.75 x 5.75
Publisher: Crimson Shamrock Press; 1st edition (March
1999)
ISBN: 0966682106
Armageddon
Revisited: A World War I Journal
by Amos Wilder
Book Description: As a young man, Amos Wilder, the distinguished
New Testament scholar and poet, served as an ambulance driver and corporal
in the Army`s 17th Field Artillery of the 2nd Division during World War
I. His journals and letters home (including correspondence with his brother,
Thornton Wilder) form the basis of this book of reminiscences about his
experiences, one of the few wartime memoirs that eloquently articulates
and interprets the common soldier`s point of view.
Publisher: Yale Univ Pr; (May 1994)
Special Order
Cellars
of Marcelcave: A Yank Doctor In the BEF
by Bernard Gallagher
Hardcover
Publisher: Burd Street Press; (June 1998)
Comrades-In-Arms:
The World War I Memoir of Captain Henri De Lecluse, Count De Trevoedal
by Roy Sandstrom
Book Description: This is a powerful and passionate account
by a French cavalry officer of daily life on the Western Front from January
1915 to August 1916. Henri de Lcluse regarded the men who served under
him as comrades and heroes and his memoir was written to memorialize those
who had fallen in combat. Beautifully written and extremely moving, Lcluses
memoir resembles short stories and is devoted to descriptions of artillery
bombardments; raids on enemy trenches; grisly atrocities; night patrols
gone awry;...
Hardcover
Publisher: Kent State Univ Pr; (November 17, 1998)
Hail
and Farewell: Letters From Two Brothers Killed In France In 1916
by Alec Raws
Publisher: Kangaroo Press; (November 2000)
Her
Privates We
by Frederic Manning.
Paperback - 288 pages (November 15, 1999)
Consortium Book Sales & Dist; ISBN: 1852427175
His
Time in Hell: A Texas Marine in France: The World War I Memoir of Warren
R. Jackson
by Warren R. Jackson, George B. Clark (Editor)
(Hardcover - November 2001)
Letters
From a Lost Generation: The First World War Letters Of Vera Brittain and
Four Friends
by Vera Brittain
The events set in motion by the outbreak of the First World War in
1914 changed many lives irrevocably. For Vera Brittain, an Oxford undergraduate
who left her studies to volunteer as a nurse in military hospitals in England
and France, the war was a shattering experience; she not only witnessed
the horrors inflicted by combat through her work, but she lost the four
men closest to her at that time--her fiancé, Roland Leighton, brother
Edward, and two close friends, Geoffrey Thurlow and Victor Nicholson, who
all died on the battlefield.
Letters from a Lost Generation, a collection of previously unpublished
correspondence between Brittain and these young men--all public schoolboys
at the start of the war--chronicles her relationship with them, and reveals
"the old lie," the idealized glory of patriotic duty that was soon overtaken
by the grim reality of the Flanders trenches. The letters are lively, dramatic,
immediate and, despite the awfulness of war, curiously optimistic: "Somehow
I feel the end is not destined to be here and now. We have not fulfilled
ourselves--and someday we shall live our roseate poem through," wrote Vera
in one of her last letters to Roland in December 1915, just days before
he was killed by a sniper's bullet. Following his death, and later those
of their mutual friends Victor and Geoffrey, Vera's letters take on a new,
raw intensity as she concentrates all her emotions on her brother--a hero
awarded the Military Cross--until his death on the Italian Front in June
1918. These letters formed the basis of Vera Brittain's remarkable autobiography,
Testament of Youth, and vividly bring to life the voices of the lost generation
whose words threaten to be lost forever as the First World War recedes
even further from living memory. --Catherine Taylor, Amazon.co.uk
Hardcover
Publisher: Northeastern University Press; (March 15, 1999)
Horses
Don't Fly: A Memoir of World War I
by Frederick Libby, Winston Groom (Introduction)
(Paperback - January 2002)
Memoirs
Of an Infantry Officer by Siegfried Sassoon
Publisher: Simon Publications; Reprint edition (August 2001)
1914-1918:
Voices & Images Of the Great War
by Lyn MacDonald
Book Description: From the boys who eagerly enlisted to the
solemn burial of the Unknown Soldier, the Christmas truces that the generals
could not prevent, the girls handing out white feathers on the streets
of London, the filth, the rain, the flies and rats, the military blunders-scenes
from the Great War have an almost overwhelming emotional power. Here, acclaimed
historian Lyn Macdonald brings together letters, diary extracts, photographs,
songs, amateur poetry, official reports, press cuttings, and eyewitness
accounts of the Western Front and Gallipoli. The result is a terrifyingly
vivid piece of unofficial history.
Publisher: Penguin Uk; (February 2000)
Seven Pillars of Wisdom
T. E. Lawrence
A superbly written account of desert warfare against the Ottoman Turk
in WWI by one one of the most intriguing characters of the modern era,
this ranks as one of the great classics of 20th century literature..
Listed under Lawrence of Arabia
Voices
from the Front: Lafayette Escadrille and the Battle Of Belleau Wood
(American Heritage Voices From the Front Series)
by Julie Fenster
Audio Cassette: ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.70 x 9.38
x 6.20
Publisher: B & B Audio Inc; (December 1996)
ISBN: 1882071735
The
War As I Saw It: 1918 Letters of a Tank Corps Lieutenant
by Harvey Harris
Publisher: Pogo Pr; 1st edition (May 1998)
War
Letters of Fallen Englishmen by Laurence Housman
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press; (August 2002)
A
Yankee Ace In the RAF: The World War I Letters Of Captain Bogart Rogers
by John Morrow
Hardcover
Publisher: Univ Pr of Kansas; (October 1996)
Testament
Of Youth: An Autobiographical Study Of the Years 1900-1925
by Vera Brittain
When war broke out in August 1914, 21-year-old Vera Brittain was planning
on enrolling at Somerville College, Oxford. Her father told her she wouldn't
be able to go: "In a few months' time we should probably all find ourselves
in the Workhouse!" he opined. Brittain had hoped to escape to the Northern
provinces, but the war seemingly dashed her plans. "It is not, perhaps,
so very surprising that the War at first seemed to me an infuriating personal
interruption rather than a world-wide catastrophe."
Her father eventually relented, however, and she was allowed to attend.
By the end of her first year, she had fallen in love with a young soldier
and resolved to become active in the war effort by volunteering as a nurse
- turning her back on what she called her "provincial young-ladyhood".
Brittain suffered through 12-hour days by reminding herself that nothing
she endured was worse than what her fiancé, Roland, experienced
in the trenches. Roland was expected home on leave for Christmas 1915;
on December 26, Brittain received news that he had been killed at the front.
Ten months later Brittain herself was sent to Malta and then to France
to serve in the hospitals nearer the front, where she witnessed firsthand
the horrors of battle. When peace finally came, Brittain had also lost
her brother Edward and two close friends. As she walked the streets of
London on November 11, 1918 - Armistice Day - she felt alone in the crowds:
For the first time I realised, with all that full realisation
meant, how completely everything that had hitherto made up my life had
vanished with Edward and Roland, with Victor and Geoffrey. The War was
over; a new age was beginning; but the dead were dead and would never return.
First published in 1933, "Testament Of Youth" established Brittain as one
of the best-loved authors of her time. Her crisp, clear prose and searing
honesty make this unsentimental memoir of a generation scarred by war a
classic. --Sunny Delaney - Amazon.com
Paperback: ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.27 x 7.75 x 5.12
Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper); Reprint edition (September
1994)
ISBN: 0140188444
War
Birds: Diary of an Unknown Aviator (Military History Ser. 6)
by John Macgavock Grider, et al
Paperback: 288 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.74 x
9.05 x 6.05
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press; (December
1988)
ISBN: 1585440876
The Storm Of Steel: From the Diary of a German Stormtroop Officer
On the Western Front
by Ernst Junger
Publisher: Howard Fertig; Reprint edition (October 1996)
ISBN: 0865274231
Out of Print - Try Used
Books
An American Pursuit Pilot In France: Roland W. Richardson's Diaries
and Letters, 1917-1919
by Roland Richardson
Publisher: White Mane Publishing Co.; (September 1994)
Out of Print - Try Used
Books
My Experiences In the First World War
by John Pershing
Publisher: DaCapo Press; (April 1995)
ASIN: 0306806169
Out of Print - Try Used
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