Reading and the First World War Readers, Texts, Archives

What role did reading play in the lives of those who experienced the First World War? This volume demonstrates that reading was both the prime leisure occupation and the main means for transmitting information for combatants and civilians during the war. Ranging from ordinary soldiers to conscientious objectors and from to war artists to civilians in occupied Belgium, the readers uncovered in this volume read for a multitude of reasons. Letters and books sent from home could bring soldiers in touch with family members and memories of lives lived before the war. Newspapers and trench journals helped maintain morale in the trenches and communicated war news and propaganda to civilian audiences. Bringing together respected specialists and emerging scholars, Reading and the First World War reveals the diversity of reading practices at the time and the central importance of reading in the experience of conflict, at the front and at home.

Shafquat Towheed is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of English at The Open University. He is the Director of the UK Reading Experience Database, 1450-1945 and the Open University's Book History Research Group. With Jonathan Rose, he is co-editor of Palgrave's New Directions in Book History series.
 
Edmund G. C. King is a Research Associate in the Department of English at The Open University, where he works on the UK Reading Experience Database, 1450-1945. His articles have appeared in leading journals such as Book History and English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920.

List of Figures
List of Tables
Acknowledgements
Notes on Contributors
Introduction; Edmund G.C. King and Shafquat Towheed
PART I: READING AND THE FORMATION OF THE LITERARY CANON
1. Khaki and Kisses: Reading the romance novel in the Great War; Jane Potter
2. Towards a popular canon: Education, war and authorial identity in Europe, 1914-1929; Alisa Miller
PART II: WRITERS' READING AND RESPONSES: FORD MADOX FORD AND EDITH WHARTON
3. Ford Madox Ford, reading, and Parade's End; Max Saunders
4. Reading the Great War: an examination of Edith Wharton's reading and responses, 1914-18; Shafquat Towheed
PART III: READING AND THE MASSES: AMERICA AND ITALY
5. 'Please send me Tess of the Dr Rbyvilles (Harding)': the reading preferences of American soldiers; Jonathan Arnold
6. 'Today they read even those who did not read': Reading in Italy during the First World War; Sara Mori
PART IV: READING AND NATIONAL IDENTITY: AUSTRALIAN SOLDIERS' READING AT THE FRONT
7. William Albert Amiet, Barrister-At-Law, M.A., reads his way through the Great War; Jim Cleary
8. A captive audience? The reading lives of Australian prisoners of wars, 1914-18; Edmund G.C. King
PART V: READING AND GROUP IDENTITY: WAR ARTISTS AND CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS
9. Reading behind the lines: War artists, war poets, reading and letter writing, 1917-19; Jonathan Black
10. Only a scrap of paper: the prison reading of British conscientious objectors, 1916-19; Catherine Feely
PART VI: READING THE NEWS: NEWSPAPERS IN BELGIUM, FRANCE AND GERMANY
11. German soldier newspapers and their Allied counterparts; Robert L. Nelson
12. Forbidden reading in occupied countries: Belgium and France, 1914-18; Emmanuel Debruyne
Bibliography
Index