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Themes in British Reviews of Great War Memoirs

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Memories from the Frontline

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Life Writing ((PSLW))

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Abstract

This chapter presents an analysis of the recurrent themes found in British reviews of war autobiographies, from the middle of the war up to around 1930. It looks primarily not at praise or condemnation of texts, but at the reasons given for evaluative judgments. It stresses the centrality of frontline combat experience and the related importance attached to authenticity. The extent to which disillusion with the war was felt to be a normal response is an important element in this reviewing, with some texts dismissed as pacifist propaganda.

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References

Primary Sources: The Memoir Texts

  • Blunden, E. 1928. Undertones of War. London: Cobden-Sanderson. Republished Oxford University Press, 1956 and Collins, 1965 and 1978. Pagination cited in the Penguin (2000) edition.

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  • Blunden, E. 1930. De Bello Germanico. Private edition, A. Blunden.

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Secondary Works Cited

  • Blücher, Princess E. 1921. An English Wife in Berlin. London: Constable.

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  • Falls, C. 1930. War Books. London: P. Davies. Pagination from Greenhill Books, 1989.

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  • Hynes, S. 1990. A War Imagined. London: Bodley Head.

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  • MacGill, P. 1916a. The Great Push. London: Herbert Jenkins.

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  • MacGill, P. 1916b. The Red Horizon. London: Herbert Jenkins.

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  • Partridge, E. 1930. The War Comes into Its Own. The Window 1 (1): 72–103.

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  • Remarque, E.M. 1928. Im Westen Nichts Neues. Berlin: Propyläen-Verlag.

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  • Stevenson, R. 2013. Literature and the Great War. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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  • Thompson, P. 1927. Lions Led by Donkeys. London: Laurie.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. London, UK

    Jerry Palmer

Authors
  1. Jerry Palmer
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Correspondence to Jerry Palmer .

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Palmer, J. (2018). Themes in British Reviews of Great War Memoirs. In: Memories from the Frontline. Palgrave Studies in Life Writing. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78051-1_5

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