Love Letters of the Great War
'Heartbreaking letters from the hell of the trenches . . . a moving collection' – Daily Mail
From the private papers of a young Winston Churchill to the tender notes of an unknown Tommy in the trenches, Love Letters of the Great War is a collection of profound, intimate and heartfelt letters written during World War One.
Many of the letters collected here are eloquent declarations of love and longing; others contain wrenching accounts of fear, jealousy and betrayal; and a number share sweet dreams of home. But in all the correspondence – whether from British, American, French, German, Russian, Australian and Canadian troops in the height of battle, or from the heartbroken wives and sweethearts left behind – there lies a truly human portrait of love and war.
A century on from the First World War, these letters offer an intimate glimpse into the hearts of men and women separated by conflict, and show how love can transcend even the bleakest and most devastating of realities.
Edited and introduced by Mandy Kirkby, with a foreword from Women's Prize-winner Helen Dunmore.
Mandy Kirkby is an editor and author, whose work includes The Language of Flowers: a Miscellany and Love Letters of the Great War.
Helen Dunmore is an acclaimed bestselling author, poet, children's novelist and short-story writer. Among her novels are Zennor in Darkness, which won the McKitterick Prize; A Spell of Winter, which won the inaugural Women's Prize; The Siege, which was shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel of the Year Award and for the Women's Prize; The Betrayal, which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Orwell Prize; Mourning Ruby, House of Orphans, Counting the Stars. Her 2014 novel The Lie is set during and just after the First World War.