All Else Is Folly

All Else Is Follyis an irreplaceable account of the Canadian experience in the First World War. It is more than a novel of the terrors and hardships of trench warfare and has a meaningful social dimension, since its author Peregrine Acland took cues from the Nietzschean notion of man as warrior and Havelock Ellis's idea of man as lover. Subtitled "a tale of war and passion," the novel was something of a bestseller in its time. Canadian Prime Minister Sir Robert Borden remarked: "No more vivid picture has been painted of what war meant to the average soldier." Originally published in 1929, Acland's searing book had a transatlantic success, appearing under the distinguished imprints of Jonathan Cape in London and Coward McCann in New York as well as in multiple reprints in Canada with McClelland & Stewart.