General
The spread of education in Britain in the decades leading up to World War I meant that British soldiers and the British public of all classes were literate. Professional and amateur authors were prolific during and after the war and found a market for their works. Literature was produced throughout the war - with women, as well as men, feeling the 'need to record their experiences' - but it was in the late 1920s and early 1930s that Britain had a boom in publication of war literature. The next boom period was in the 1960s, when there was renewed interest in World War I during the fiftieth anniversaries and after two decades focused on World War II.Poetry
Published poets wrote over two thousand poems about and during the war. However, only a small fraction still is known today, and several poets that were popular with contemporary readers are now obscure. An orthodox selection of poets and poems emerged during the 1960s, which often remains the standard in modern collections and distorts the impression of World War I poetry. This selection tends to emphasise the horror of war, suffering, tragedy and anger against those that wage war. In the early weeks of the war, British poets responded with an outpouring of literary production. Rudyard Kipling's ''For all we have and are'' was syndicated extensively by newspapers in English speaking countries. Robert Bridges contributed a poem ''Wake Up, England!'' at the outbreak of war that he later wished suppressed., John Masefield, who later succeeded Bridges as poet laureate, wrote ''August, 1914'', a poem that was admired widely. Wilfred Owen was killed in battle; but his poems created at the front did achieve popular attention after the war's end,.e.g., Dulce Et Decorum Est, Insensibility, Anthem for Doomed Youth, Futility (poem), Futility and Strange Meeting (poem), Strange Meeting. In preparing for the publication of his collected poems, Owen tried to explain: Epic poem In Parenthesis by David Jones (artist-poet) has also been widely hailed as a masterpiece. The poem In Flanders Fields by John McCrae continues to be one of the more popular wartime poems in Canada, and has achieved a status where it is recognized as one of the country's most notable unofficial symbols. The expressionist poet August Stramm wrote some of Germany's important poems about the war. From the war itself until the late 1970s, the genre of war poetry was almost exclusively reserved for male poets. This was based on an idea of an exclusive authenticity limited to the works of those who had fought and died in the war. It excluded other forms of experience in the war, such as mourning, nursing and the home front, which were more likely to be experienced by other demographics such as women. There were over 500 women writing and publishing poetry during World War I. Examples of poems by female poets include Teresa Hooley's ''A War Film'', Jessie Pope's ''War Girls'', and Mary H.J. Henderson's ''An Incident''. In addition to giving women greater access to work, the war also gave women greater artistic freedom and space to express their identities as artists.Novels
A common subject for fiction in the 1920s and 1930s was the effect of the war, including shell shock and the huge social changes caused by the war. From the latter half of the 20th century onwards, World War I continued to be a popular subject for fiction, mainly novels.Contemporary
Alfred Noyes is often portrayed by hostile critics as a militarist and jingoist despite being a pacifist in life.Featherstone, Simon. ''War Poetry: An Introductory Reader''. Routledge, 1995, pp. 28, 56-57. In 1913, when it seemed that war might yet be avoided, he published a long anti-war poem called ''The Wine Press''. During World War I, Noyes was debarred by defective eyesight from serving at the front. Instead, from 1916, he did his military service on attachment to the Foreign Office, where he worked with John Buchan on propaganda.Mason, MarkPost-war
A.P. Herbert was one of the first combatants to publish a novel about the war, ''The Secret Battle'' (1919). This was followed in subsequent years by others, including ''Through the Wheat'' (1923) by Thomas Alexander Boyd, the "Spanish Farm Trilogy"—''Sixty-Four'' (1925), ''Ninety-Four'' (1925) and ''The Crime at Vanderlynden's'' (1926)—by Ralph Hale Mottram, ''Death of a Hero'' (1929) by Richard Aldington, ''The Middle Parts of Fortune'' (1929) by Frederic Manning, ''The Patriot's Progress'' (1930) by Henry Williamson, ''Generals Die in Bed'' by Charles Yale Harrison (1930) and ''Winged Victory (novel), Winged Victory'' (1934) by Victor Maslin Yeates. ''Parade's End'' by Ford Madox Ford was a highly acclaimed tetralogy of novels, published between 1924 and 1927, that covers the events of World War I and the years around it from the viewpoint of a government statistician who becomes an officer in the British Army during the war. The novels were based on Ford's own experience in the war after he had enlisted at age 41. Willa Cather wrote ''One of Ours'' in 1922, and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1923 for her novel that tells the story of Claude Wheeler, a Nebraska farmer who escapes a loveless marriage to fight in the War. Critics like H.L. Mencken and Sinclair Lewis panned the book, mostly because it romanticized war. Cather based Claude Wheeler on her cousin G.P. Cather, who was killed in 1918 at the Battle of Cantigny in France. May Sinclair volunteered with the Munro Ambulance Corps in 1914 and published her account of the front in Belgium as ''A Journal of Impressions in Belgium'' (1915). She followed this with three novels about the war, ''Tasker Jevons'' (1916), ''The Tree of Heaven'' (1917) and ''The Romantic (Sinclair novel), The Romantic'' (1920). Journalist Evadne Price wrote a semi-biographical novel ''Not So Quiet: Stepdaughters of War'' (1930) about ambulance drivers based on women she had interviewed. W. Somerset Maugham's ''Ashenden: Or the British Agent'' (1928), a collection of short stories, was based on the author's experience with British Intelligence during the war. It was loosely adapted into the film ''Secret Agent (1936 film), Secret Agent'' (1936), directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and a 1991 BBC TV series. German author Hans Herbert Grimm wrote a novel Schlump (novel), ''Schlump'' in 1928 which was published anonymously due to its satirical and anti-war tone, loosely based on the author's own experiences as a military policeman in German-occupied France during WW1. The novel was banned by the Nazis in 1933 and Grimm was not credited as the author until 2013. British novelist W.F. Morris wrote two mystery novels set in the Great War- Bretherton: Khaki or Field Grey?, ''Bretherton'' (1929) and ''Behind the Lines'' (1930). Morris served in the British army during the war. ''A Farewell to Arms'' is a novel by Ernest Hemingway set during the Italian Front (World War I), Italian campaign of World War I. The book, published in 1929, is a first-person account of American Frederic Henry, serving as a lieutenant ("Tenente") in the ambulance corps of the Italian Army. The novel is about a love affair between the expatriate American Henry and Catherine Barkley against the backdrop of World War I, cynical soldiers, fighting and the displacement of populations. The publication of ''A Farewell to Arms'' cemented Hemingway's stature as a modern American writer, became his first best-seller, and is described by biographer Michael Reynolds as "the premier American war novel from that debacle World War I." The popular literary characters Biggles and Bulldog Drummond were created by veterans of the war, W.E. Johns and H.C. McNeile respectively. Both characters served in the war and shared some their creators' history. The Bulldog Drummond books were popular among veterans after the war. Writers like Paul Fussell and Janet S.K. Watson have questioned '[w]hat role [...] memory play[s] in historical reconstruction’ - arguing that retrospective accounts are often disillusioned. French writer and former infantryman on the Western Front Gabriel Chevallier wrote a novel ''Fear'' in 1930, based on his own experiences in the Great War. The novel was not published in English until 2011. Although most famous for his popular Hornblower series, ''Hornblower'' series of Napoleonic War adventure novels, C.S. Forester also wrote three novels set in the First World War. Of the three, only one- The General (C.S. Forester novel), ''The General'' (1936) was set on the Western Front, the others The African Queen (novel), ''The African Queen'' (1935), which was famously The African Queen (film), filmed in 1951, was set in German East Africa and ''Brown on Resolution'' (1929), was a naval adventure set in the Central Pacific. According to one source, Adolf Hitler admired the novel ''The General'' in the late 1930s and recommended it to his generals due to its depiction of the British military mindset. Writer William March, who fought with the U.S. Marines in France during World War I, wrote a novel ''Company K'' in 1933, loosely based on his own experiences. Another American writer Dalton Trumbo wrote a bitterly anti-war novel ''Johnny Got His Gun'' in 1938 which won a National Book Award the following year and was made into a Johnny Got His Gun (film), film in 1971. New Zealander John A Lee, who fought as an infantryman in World War I and who lost an arm, produced a novel ''Citizen into Soldier'' (1937) inspired by his own experiences.Late 20th-century and beyond
Novels concerning World War I continued to appear in the latter half of the 20th century, albeit less frequently. The novel ''Return to the Wood'' (1955) by James Lansdale Hodson depicted the court-martial of a British soldier accused of desertion, and the book was adapted as the play ''Hamp'' in 1964 by John Wilson and filmed as ''King and Country'' by Joseph Losey in the same year. The novel ''Covenant with Death'' (1961) by John Harris (novelist), John Harris portrays a Sheffield Pals battalion, Pals Battalion on the First day on the Somme, first day of the Battle of the Somme (1916), Battle of the Somme in 1916 and Christopher Hitchens later referred to it as a 'neglected masterpiece'. In the mid-1960s, there was a resurgence of fiction depicting the aerial campaigns of World War I, including ''The Blue Max'' (1964) by Jack D. Hunter, which became a The Blue Max (1966 film), major film in 1966 along with ''A Killing for the Hawks'' (1966) by Frederick E. Smith and ''In the Company of Eagles'' (1966) by Ernest K. Gann. ''How Young They Died'' (1968) by Stuart Cloete was possibly the last novel written by an actual veteran. Elleston Trevor had made his name in the 1950s through episonage and WW2-themed novels but he turned to World War I with his novel ''Bury Him Among Kings'' (1970). The novel ''Goshawk Squadron'' (1971) by Derek Robinson (novelist), Derek Robinson depicts a British air-force unit in the closing months of World War I, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and was later followed by two 'prequels' set earlier in the conflict, ''War Story'' (1987) and ''Hornet's Sting'' (1999). ''Three Cheers for Me'' (1962) and its sequel ''That's Me in the Middle'' (1973) by Donald Jack, are narrated by fictional Canadian air ace Bart Bandy; both won the Leacock Medal. Canadian novelist Timothy Findley, Timothy Findley's novel of the conflict ''The Wars'' was published in 1977 and it received his country's Governor General's Award for English-language fiction, top award for literature. ''War Horse (novel), War Horse'' (1982) by Michael Morpurgo is set in World War I and won the Whitbread Book Award for 1982. It has been adapted into a War Horse (play), play and War Horse (film), film. U.S. writer Mark Helprin, Mark Helprin's ''A Soldier of the Great War'' and French novelist Sebastien Japrisot's ''A Very Long Engagement'' both appeared in 1991. The novel Birdsong (novel), ''Birdsong'' (1993) by Sebastian Faulks received much praise. Of similar acclaim is Pat Barker's Regeneration Trilogy; the third novel from the series ''The Ghost Road,'' received the most prestigious award in British fiction: The Booker Prize in 1995 (though the nomination implied the award was for the whole series). In 2014, during the centenary of the World War I, the Indian author Akhil Katyal published the poem 'Some letters of Indian soldiers at World War One' marking the contribution of more than a million Indian soldiers to the war. To the Last Man (Shaara novel), To the Last Man: A Novel of the First World War (2004) is a novel written by Jeff Shaara that uses perspectives from the generals and the doughboys and from the Allies and the Germans. The 2011 novel ''The Absolutist'' was written by John Boyne, the story featuring two teenage friends who enlist in the British army together and experience the war on the Western Front. The 2016 novel ''No Man's Land'' by Simon Tolkien (grandson of J. R. R. Tolkien) portrays a working-class boy who has been adopted by a wealthy family and who interrupts his Oxford studies to serve in the trenches. The 2017 novelMemoirs
Captain John Hay Beith's ''The First Hundred Thousand (book), The First Hundred Thousand'', a best-selling account of life in the army, was published in 1915 and became one of the more popular books of the period. It was translated into French as ''Les Premiers Cent Mille''. Due to its popularity in the United States, which was neutral at the time, Beith was transferred to the British War Mission in Washington, D.C. The memoirs of several famous aerial 'aces' were published during the war, including ''Winged Warfare'' (1918) by Canadian Billy Bishop, William Bishop, ''Flying Fury'' (1918) by English ace James McCudden and ''The Red Fighter Pilot'' (1917) by Manfred von Richthofen (the latter two men were killed in action after their books were written). After the war many participants published their memoirs and diaries. One of the first was ''Storm of Steel'' (1920) by German writer Ernst Jünger, an account of his experiences as an officer on the Western Front (it was first published in English in 1930). The first memoirs of Allied combatants were published in 1922, not long after the armistice: ''A Tank Driver's Experiences'' by Arthur Jenkins (soldier), Arthur Jenkins and ''Disenchantment (1922 memoir), Disenchantment'' by Charles Edward Montague. These were shortly joined with ''Undertones of War'' (1928) by Edmund Blunden, ''Good-Bye to All That'' (1929) by Robert Graves, ''A Subaltern's War'' (1929) by Charles Edmund Carrington, ''A Passionate Prodigality'' (1933) by Guy Chapman and ''Blasting and Bombardiering'' (1937) by Percy Wyndham Lewis. Memoirs of airmen included ''Wind in the Wires'' (1933) by Duncan Grinnell-Milne, ''Wings of War'' (1933) by Rudolf Stark and ''Sagittarius Rising'' (1936) by Cecil Arthur Lewis. Nurses also published memoirs of their wartime experiences, such as ''A Diary without Dates'' (1918) by Enid Bagnold, ''Forbidden Zone (1929 memoir), Forbidden Zone'' (1929) by Mary Borden, ''Testament of Youth'' (1933) by Vera Brittain and ''We That Were Young'' (1932) by Irene Rathbone. Some Great War memoirs were not published until late in the 20th century or beyond, sometimes because the author did not write them until later in life or because they had been unable to, or had chosen not to, have them published at the time of writing (as a result, some manuscripts were published posthumously). One example was ''Poilu'' by French writer, barrel-maker and political activist Louis Barthas, a memoir written shortly after the war but not published until 1978 (the author died in 1952).The book described the author's experiences as a corporal in the French army on the Western Front. British WW1 veteran George Coppard published his memoir ''With a Machine-Gun to Cambrai'' in 1968 while former airman Arthur Gould Lee produced his own memoir ''No Parachute'' the same year. The memoir ''Somme Mud'' was written in the 1920s but not published until 2006, over two decades after the author's death. The author, Australian Edward Francis Lynch, fought with the AIF in France in 1916–1918. ''The Burning of the World'', first published in 2014, was a memoir of the Great War on the Eastern Front by Hungarian writer & painter Bela Zombory-Moldovan who enlisted in the Austro-Hungarian Army in 1914 at age 29.Theatre
Plays about World War I include: * ''Journey's End'' (1928), by R. C. Sherriff * The Silver Tassie (play), ''The Silver Tassie'' (1928), by Sean O'Casey * Post-Mortem (Coward play), ''Post-Mortem'' (1930), by Noël Coward * ''For Services Rendered'' (1932), by Somerset Maugham * ''The One Day of the Year'' (1958), by Alan Seymour * ''Oh, What a Lovely War!'' (1963), by Joan Littlewood * ''The Accrington Pals (play), The Accrington Pals'' (1982), by Peter Whelan * ''Not About Heroes'' (1982), by Stephen MacDonald * ''Once on Chunuk Bair'' (1982), by Maurice Shadbolt * ''Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme'' (1985), by Frank McGuinness * ''My Boy Jack (play), ''My Boy Jack'' (1997), by David Haig * ''An August Bank Holiday Lark'' (2014), by Deborah McAndrew * ''Anzac Eve'' (2017), by Dave Armstrong (playwright), Dave ArmstrongFrench literature on WWI
Novels inspired by the author's experiences
* ''Le Feu : journal d'une escouade'' / Henri Barbusse * ''La Percée : roman d'un fantassin (1914-1915)'' / Jean Bernier * ''L'Appel du sol'' / Adrien Bertrand * ''Voyage au bout de la nuit'' / Louis Ferdinand Céline * ''La Peur'' / Gabriel Chevallier * ''Les Poilus'' / Joseph Delteil * ''Les Croix de Bois'' / Roland Dorgelès * ''Ceux de 14'' / Maurice Genevoix * ''Solitude de la Pitié'' / Jean Giono * ''Le Grand troupeau'' / Jean Giono * ''Les Silences du colonel Bramble ; suivi des Discours et nouveaux discours du Docteur O'Grady'' / André Maurois * ''Capitaine Conan'' / Roger Vercel * ''Clavel soldat'' / Léon WerthOther French novels
* ''La Sentinelle tranquille sous la lune'' / Soazig Aaron * ''Les Beaux quartiers'' / Louis Aragon * ''La Maison rose'' / Pierre Bergounioux * ''Comme le temps passe'' / Robert Brasillach * ''Les Ames grises'' / Philippe Claudel * ''Meuse l'oubli'' / Philippe Claudel * ''Les Roses de Verdun'' / Bernard Clavel * ''Thomas l'imposteur'' / Jean Cocteau * ''Le Der des ders'' / Didier Daeninckx * ''La Comédie de Charleroi'' / Pierre Drieu la Rochelle * ''La Chambre des officiers'' / Marc Dugain * ''Le Monument : roman vrai'' / Claude Duneton * ''14'' / Jean Echenoz * ''Dans la guerre'' / Alice Ferney * ''Partita'' / Roger Grenier * ''Le Palais d'hiver'' / Roger Grenier * ''Le Sang noir'' / Louis Guilloux * ''Derrière la colline'' / Xavier Hanotte * ''De secrètes injustices'' / Xavier Hanotte * ''Les Lieux communs'' / Xavier Hanotte * ''Un Long dimanche de fiançailles'' / Sébastien Japrisot * ''Waltenberg'' / Hédi Kaddour * ''L'Equipage'' / Joseph Kessel * ''Le Chercheur d'or'' / Jean-Marie-Gustave Le Clézio * ''Au revoir là-haut'' / Pierre Lemaître * ''Les Thibault (n°1-2-3)'' / Roger Martin du Gard * ''Le Bruit du vent'' / Hubert Mingarelli * ''Quatre soldats'' / Hubert Mingarelli * ''Les Enfants de la patrie (n° 1-2-3-4)'' / Pierre Miquel * ''La Poudrière d'Orient (n° 1-2-3-4)'' / Pierre Miquel * ''La Liberté guidait leurs pas (n° 1-2-3-4)'' / Pierre Miquel * ''Le Diable au corps'' / Raymond Radiguet * ''Les Hommes de bonne volonté (n° 1-2-3-4)'' / Jules Romains * ''Les Champs d'honneur'' / Jean Rouaud * ''Le Collier rouge'' / Jean-Christophe Rufin * ''L'Acacia'' / Claude Simon * ''Quatre soldats français (n° 1-2-3-4)'' / Jean Vautrin * ''Alexis ou le traité du vain combat ; suivi de Le Coup de Grâce'' / Marguerite YourcenarGerman literature on WWI
* ''All Quiet on the Western Front, Im Westen nichts Neues'' / Erich Maria Remarque * ''War'' / Ludwig RennSee also
* British women's literature of World War I * Fiction based on World War I * World War I in popular culture * World War II in popular cultureReferences
Further reading
* Johnson, George M. (2015) Mourning and Mysticism in First World War Literature and Beyond: Grappling with Ghosts. Palgrave Macmillan. * Keene, Jennifer D. "Remembering the 'Forgotten War': American Historiography on World War I." ''Historian'' 78.3 (2016): 439-468, covers fiction and nonfiction * Posman, Sarah; Dijck, Cedric van; Demoor, Marysa (eds) (2017). ''The Intellectual Response to the First World War''. Sussex Academic Press. 978-1-84519-824-4 * * * * * * *External links
* Budgen, David