The Great War and Modern Memory.

FUSSELL, Paul.

Item Number: 129741

New York and London: Oxford University Press, 1975.

First edition of Fussell’s seminal work on the British experience on the Western Front and the literary means by which it has been remembered. Octavo, bound in full crushed red morocco by Sangorski and Sutcliffe with gilt titles and tooling to the spine in six compartments within raised gilt bands, double gilt ruling and fleuron cornerpieces to the front and rear panels, gilt turn-ins and inner dentelles, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. In fine condition.

In the Great War and Modern Memory, Fussell describes the literary responses by English participants in World War I to their experiences of combat, particularly in trench warfare. The perceived futility and insanity of this conduct became, for many gifted Englishmen of their generation, a metaphor for life. Fussell describes how the collective experience of the "Great War" was correlated with, and to some extent underlain by, an enduring shift in the aesthetic perceptions of individuals, from the tropes of Romanticism that had guided young adults before the war, to the harsher themes that came to be dominant during the war and after. It was ranked #75 on the Modern Library's list of the 100 best non-fiction books of the 20th century.