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Today marks the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War, when many people will be turning to history and literature in order to understand the cataclysm that cast a shadow over the last century. Some of the most important works on the Great War have fallen out of circulation since they first appeared and risk being overlooked during this period of remembrance. With this in mind, McGill-Queen’s University Press is reissuing a select number of books deserving a second look.
The first books in this venture are Will R. Bird’s And We Go On (1930) and Frederick George Scott’s The Great War as I Saw It (1922), memoirs that offer two very different perspectives on life in the trenches of the Western Front.
THE GREAT WAR AS I SAW IT, by Frederick George Scott, with an introduction by Mark G. McGowan (October 2014)
A fifty-three-year-old Anglican priest and poet when the First World War broke out, Frederick George Scott was an improbable volunteer, but also an invaluable war memoirist about life at the front. Enlisting at the very beginning of the conflict and serving on the Western Front until the Armistice, Scott became the most decorated Canadian chaplain.
The Great War as I Saw It is an idiosyncratic portrait by a man of strong religious convictions witnessing the horror of modern warfare. More info >
AND WE GO ON, by Will R. Bird, with an introduction by David Larry Williams (September 2014)
In the autumn of 1915 Will Bird was working on a farm in Saskatchewan when the ghost of his brother Stephen, killed by German mines in France, appeared before him in uniform. Rattled, Bird rushed home to Nova Scotia and enlisted in the army to take his dead brother’s place.
And We Go On is a remarkable and harrowing memoir of his two years in the trenches of the Western Front, from October 1916 until the Armistice. More info >
These books are being reissued with new critical introductions on these unjustly forgotten authors and outline their contributions to the literary canon of the Great War. By reintroducing these works to a wider readership, we hope to enlarge the conversation about the war and contribute to greater public understanding of the war’s meaning and legacy.
OTHER NOTABLE RELEASES
ONWARD, DEAR BOYS, by Philippe Bieler (November 2014)
Onward, Dear Boys is the compelling account of a Swiss Protestant family that immigrated to Montreal and sent their four sons to fight in the First World War.
The Bieler family’s vast collection of wartime letters and photographs tell intimate, firsthand stories of five young brothers and their parents. Philippe Bieler weaves together his own voice with those of his grandparents, his father, and his uncles into a story of war, immigration, and family life. More info >
PADRES IN NO MAN’S LAND, SECOND EDITION, by Duff Crerar (New in paperback, August 2014)
Padres in No Man’s Land is the compelling story of brave and deeply committed army chaplains who brought faith and courage to Canada’s troops during one of history’s most devastating wars.
Tracing the growth of the Canadian Chaplain Service from its chaotic and controversy-ridden early days to its maturation as an efficient field force, Duff Crerar highlights both the role of the Service on the battlefield and the personal experiences of the chaplains. More info >
THE FIGHTING NEWFOUNDLANDER, NEW EDITION, by Gerald W.L. Nicholson (Re-issued in March 2014)
When Word War I began, Newfoundland had been without any kind of military organization for almost half a century. Public-spirited citizens immediately formed themselves into a Patriotic Association and within sixty days had recruited, partially equipped, and dispatched 537 officers and men overseas.
The Fighting Newfoundlander is a vivid history of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment and its heroic contributions to the war effort. More info >
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