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Books1 Welcome to Michele's Women's FWW Books2
Writing Book Page

I have done so much reading about women's literature of the First World War in the last year that I have decided to create a separate book page for women's fictional and non-fictional accounts of the War, and to provide details of critical accounts of such writing. Since I am aware that such writing as this is a novelty to the majority of those who read this site, I have included a few lines of information about many of the writers featured. The majority of these titles were published in the 1920s and 1930s, so unfortunately, owing to publishing being such a fickle business, the majority of titles here are out of print. If you are interested in purchasing any of the titles that do not have an Amazon link with them, I suggest you try the Advanced Book Exchange site - this site features dealers from all over the world and I have found a great many books I wanted via this site. The fiction/autobiography by male writers is on my second book page. If anyone wants any further information on WW1 literature or history books, then please do email me and I'll do my best to help. Or if you prefer, I am an Associate of Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk so use their search boxes here, and if anyone wants to buy any of the books mentioned below follow the appropriate links ! If you are fed up with friends and family buying you books you are not interested in, why not set up a wish-list with Amazon UK ? To find out more, and to set up the list, click here.

Fiction


Bagnold, Enid
- A Diary Without Dates (Heinemann, 1918; reprinted Virago Press, 1978)
- The Happy Foreigner (Heinemann, 1920; reprinted Virago Press, 1987)
- The Squire (1938)

Enid Bagnold was a V. A. D. nurse (Voluntary Aid Detachment). She was dismissed from her post for publishing A Diary Without Dates. The Happy Foreigner and The Squire are both novels based on her experiences of the War.

* Barker, Pat
- Regeneration (Part 1 of the Regeneration Trilogy) (Penguin, 1992)
- Eye in the Door (Part 2 of the Regeneration Trilogy) (Penguin, 1994)
- The Ghost Road (Part 3 of the Regeneration Trilogy) (Penguin, 1996)
- The Regeneration Trilogy (in one volume) (Viking, 1996)
- Another World (Another WW1 tale but not in the Regeneration trilogy) (Penguin, 1998)
Regeneration Eye in the Door Ghost Road Regeneration Trilogy Another World







Buy Regeneration from Amazon US.
Buy The Eye in the Door from Amazon US or Amazon UK.
Buy The Ghost Road from Amazon US or Amazon UK.
Buy The Regeneration Trilogy (in one volume) from Amazon UK.
Buy Another World from Amazon UK.

Students (in particular) might find the "Continuum Contemporaries" volume: Pat Barker's "Regeneration": A Reader's Guide edited by Karin Westman useful. It is available in paperback (Continuum International Publishing Group, 2001) for a relatively small sum from Amazon UK.

Borden, Mary
- The Forbidden Zone (Heinemann, 1929)

Mary Borden was an American V. A. D. nurse who served with the French Army in the strip of land immediately behind the firing zone, known as 'The Forbidden Zone', hence the title for her work. This book is a combination of prose sketches and some very powerful poetry.

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Testament of Youth

Brittain, Vera
- Honourable Estate (Victor Gollancz, 1936)
- Testament of Friendship (Virago Press, 1980)
- Testament of Youth (Victor Gollancz, 1933)
Buy
Testament of Youth from Amazon UK or from Amazon US

Doolittle, Hilda ('H. D.')
- Bid Me To Live (1960; reprinted Virago Press, 1984)

H. D. was an Imagist poet as well as novelist, and Bid Me To Live is her fictionalised autobiographical account of the experience of the FWW. Although it was begun in 1918, it was largely re-written during the 1930s. Most of it had been finished by 1948 but it was not published until 1960. H. D. was married to Richard Aldington, and this book is best read in conjunction with his Death of a Hero.

Hamilton, Cicely
- William - an Englishman (Persephone Books, 1998)
Buy William from Amazon UK.

* Johnston, Jennifer
How Many Miles cover - How Many Miles to Babylon (Penguin, 1989)
Buy How Many Miles from Amazon UK.

Rathbone, Irene
- We That Were Young (The Feminist Press, 1988)
Buy We That Were Young from Amazon UK.

Irene Rathbone's We That Were Young can be read in conjunction with Richard Aldington's Death of a Hero.

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Smith, Helen Zenna
- Not So Quiet . . . Step-daughters of the War (The Feminist Press, 1989 reissue)
- Women of the Aftermath (1931)
- Shadow Women (1932)
- Luxury Ladies (1933)
- They Lived with Me (1934)
Buy Not So Quiet from Amazon UK. Review.

Helen Zenna Smith is the pseudonym of Evadne Price. Her novel Not So Quiet . . . is based on the war diaries of Winifred Young. The idea for the novel derived from the publisher of Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, and was meant as a spoof (written from a woman's point of view) on All Quiet. Having read Remarque's novel, however, Price rejected the idea of a spoof and wrote a serious, compelling novel instead, which should be read in conjunction with Remarque's for the best effect. The other four titles listed are sequels to Not So Quiet . . ..

West, Rebecca
Return of Soldier - The Return of the Soldier (Nisbet 1918; reprinted Virago Press, 1980)
Buy The Return of the Soldier from Amazon UK or from Amazon US.

Wharton, Edith
- A Son at the Front (Reprint Northern Illinois University Press, October 1995)
Buy A Son at the Front from Amazon UK. Son at the Front

* means this book is by a contemporary (ie still living) author.

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Other books by women that could be profitably read in conjunction with books by men are Amber Reeves' Give and Take or E. M. Delafield's The War Workers alongside H. G. Wells' Mr Britling Sees it Through; Laura Riding's A Trojan Ending alongside Robert Graves' Goodbye to All That; Sylvia Thompson's The Hounds of Spring alongside Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man; Ellen La Motte's The Backwash of War: The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield as Witnessed by an American Nurse (1916) alongside A Farewell to Arms.

Criticism

Beauman, Nicola
- A Very Great Profession: The Woman's Novel 1914-1939 (Virago Press, 1983)

Cadogan, Mary and Craig, Patricia
- Women and Children First: The Fiction of Two World Wars (Victor Gollancz, 1978)

Elshtain, Jean Bekthe
- Women and War (Harvester, 1987) (Covers more than the FWW, but still useful.)

Gilbert, Sandra and Gubar, Susan
- The War of Words (Volume 1 of No Man's Land: The Place of the Woman Writer in the 20th Century) (Yale University Press, 1988)
- Sexchanges (Volume 2 of the above) (Yale University Press, 1989)

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Goldman, Dorothy (ed.)
Women Writers - Women and World War 1: The Written Response (Macmillan Press Ltd., 1993).

Goldman, Dorothy, Jane Gledhill and Judith Hattaway
- Women Writers and the Great War (Twayne Publishers: New York, 1995)
Buy Women Writers from Amazon US.

Goldman, Dorothy, Agnes Cardinal and Judith Hattaway (eds.)
Women's Writing - Women's Writing on the First World War (Clarendon Press, 1999)
Buy Women's Writing from Amazon UK.

Higonnet, M. R., Jane Jenson, Sonya Michel and M. Collins Wietz (eds.)
- Behind the Lines: Gender and the Two World Wars (Yale University Press, 1987)

Munich, Adrienne Auslander , Helen M. Cooper and Susan Merrill Squier (eds.)
- Arms and the Woman : War, Gender and Literary Representation (University of North Carolina Press, 1989)
Buy Arms and the Woman from Amazon US.

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Ouditt, Sharon
- Fighting Forces, Writing Women: Identity and Ideology in the First World War (Routledge, 1994)
Buy Fighting Forces, Writing Women from Amazon US.

- Women Writers of the First World War: an Annotated Bibliography (Routledge, 1999)

Raitt Suzanne and Tate, Trudi (eds.)
- Women's Fiction and the Great War (Oxford Univ Press, 1997)

Smith, Angela K. (ed.)
Women's Writing
- Women's Writing of the First World War (Manchester University Press, 2000)
Buy Women's Writing from Amazon UK.

Tylee, Claire
- The Great War and Women's Consciousness: Images of Militarism and Womanhood (Macmillan Press, Ltd., 1990).
Buy The Great War and Women's Consciousness from Amazon US.

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