Conceiving Strangeness in British First World War Writing

By: Claire Buck

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Synopsis: Conceiving Strangeness in British First World War Writing reframes Britain's First World War experience within a broader understanding of Britain's history as an imperial nation. From E. M. Forster's writing about his Red Cross work in Alexandria to National Velvet author Enid Bagnold's Diary Without Dates about her experience in war hospitals, this volume opens up our sense of war writing. The work of Siegfried Sassoon and John Masefield is set beside that of Mulk Raj Anand and Captain Roly Grimshaw, to complicate and enlarge what we think of when we think of Great War literature. In addition, the examination of the origins of the Imperial War Museum helps to make clear the massive cultural efforts, starting during the war itself, at shaping British understanding of everything from home front to no-man's-land. The analysis and historical detail in this book change our cultural understanding not only of war writing but also of the war itself.