"The Great War" book collecting

If you were collecting books (fiction and non-fiction) about WWI (The
Great War), where would you start? These would have to be printed or
translated in english. Can you recommend dealers that specialize in
WWI books?

Art Layton
Stamford, CT USA

Art Layton asked....

If you were collecting books (fiction and non-fiction) about WWI (The
Great War), where would you start? These would have to be printed or
translated in english. Can you recommend dealers that specialize in
WWI books?

I understand that the book detailed below is considered to be one of the best,
looking at the war from the German point of view..

Junger, Lt. Ernst: The Storm of Steel: From the Diary of a German Storm-Troop
Officer on the Western Front, London, United Kingdom Chalto & Windus Ltd 1929
Junger was a Lieutenant in the 73rd Hanoverian Fusilier Regiment. His memoirs
are recognised as one of the finest to come out of the First World War

Stan
Giltedge Books
Chelmsford

Art Layton wrote:
If you were collecting books (fiction and non-fiction) about WWI (The
Great War), where would you start? These would have to be printed or
translated in english. Can you recommend dealers that specialize in
WWI books?

Art Layton
Stamford, CT USA


Hi Art,


As to titles, I can suggest a few (in addition to the
obvious All Quiet on the Western Front):


Arnold Zweig, The Case of Sergeant Grishka
Arnold Zweig, Education Before Verdun
Cpt.Gilbert Nobbs, On the Right of the British Line
Bertram Wolfe, Three Who Made a Revolution
John Reed, Ten Days That Shook the World
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Lenin in Zurich
Alexander Solzhenitzyn, August 1914
Barbara Tuchman, The Guns of August
Barbara Tuchman, The Zimmerman Telegram
Cpt. von Rintelen, The Dark Invader
Cpt. Donald Macintyre, Jutland
Lowell Thomas, Raiders of the Deep
Lowell Thomas, Count Luckner: The Sea Devil
Lowell Thomas, With Lawrence in Arabia
Lawrence, Revolt in the Desert
Leon Wolff, In Flanders Fields
John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace


Some of them make good paired reading, such as:

Solzhenitsyn, August, 1914 and Tuchman, The Guns of August
Tuchman, The Zimmerman Telegram and Rintelen, The Dark Invader
Thomas, With Lawrence in Arabia and Lawrence, Revolt in the
Desert


I grant that the three on the start of the Russian
Revolution are not strictly on WWI itself, but I consider
the former to be inextricably linked to the latter.


I would like to say a few words about the Nobbs book, which
I picked up at a tag sale two weekends ago and which I
quickly read shortly after that. Nobbs wrote a memoir of
his brief role in the war. He was transported as a company
commander of territorial soldiers (i.e., new volunteers, not
regular army) to France, marched straight to the Somme and
was given orders to attack a day or so later. The orders
were changed at the last hour (literally) and the point of
his attack altered to charge the middle of an area defended
on three sides. Dutifully, his company of 135 men attacked.
Within a short time, he and another man reached within 10
yards of the German line, but with all the rest of the
company dead. The other man was sent back to call for
reinforcements and killed on the way. Nobbs took a bullet
through the left temple and out the right eye. He was
captured by the Germans and blinded for life. It is a
powerful story.


Francis A. Miniter

Lowell Thomas, With Lawrence in Arabia
Lawrence, Revolt in the Desert
Leon Wolff, In Flanders Fields

Art,

Go for 7 Pillars of Wisdom rather than Revolt in the Desert - the latter was
a reduced version that Lawrence created from his Ltd Edition of 7 Pillars
(£60,000 today!) in 6 weeks, so its not a great production.

Plus - I would think any collection of WW1 is incomplete without poetry from
the trenches - Sassoon, Owen, Brooke and Graves not to mention the multitude
of others, no less virtuous yet simply forgotten!

Cheers,

Tom L-M

Art Layton wrote:

If you were collecting books (fiction and non-fiction) about WWI (The
Great War), where would you start?

Personally, I'd probably want to start with the War Poets. I also find war
propaganda quite fascinating. I don't know much about WWI propaganda, but I
have one title, The Ignoble Warrior, by Robertson Scott, that gives me a bit
of an insight. It's a bilingual Japanese/English publication, with numerous
cartoons by Louis Raemakers, facsimile letters, etc., all calculated to turn
popular (Japanese) opinion against the Germans. It's interesting to see the
ins and outs of the attempt, especially in view of the fact that it failed
and Japan turned to militarism and allied with Germany over the following
years.

--
John
http://rarebooksinjapan.com

"Francis A. Miniter" wrote in message ...
Art Layton wrote:
If you were collecting books (fiction and non-fiction) about WWI (The
Great War), where would you start? These would have to be printed or
translated in english. Can you recommend dealers that specialize in
WWI books?

Art Layton
Stamford, CT USA


Hi Art,

snip

I would like to say a few words about the Nobbs book, which
I picked up at a tag sale two weekends ago and which I
quickly read shortly after that. Nobbs wrote a memoir of
his brief role in the war. He was transported as a company
commander of territorial soldiers (i.e., new volunteers, not
regular army) to France, marched straight to the Somme and
was given orders to attack a day or so later. The orders
were changed at the last hour (literally) and the point of
his attack altered to charge the middle of an area defended
on three sides. Dutifully, his company of 135 men attacked.
Within a short time, he and another man reached within 10
yards of the German line, but with all the rest of the
company dead. The other man was sent back to call for
reinforcements and killed on the way. Nobbs took a bullet
through the left temple and out the right eye. He was
captured by the Germans and blinded for life. It is a
powerful story.

Ah, yes, the Battle of the Somme. England's finest moment. Sixty
thousuand men march shoulder to shoulder across open fields into
german machine guns. By the end of the day, sixty thousand are dead.

Art Layton
Stamford CT

Art Layton wrote:

Can you recommend dealers that specialize in WWI books?

From the Exlibris archives:
___________________________________
For World War One - You might try:

John Marrin
G. & D. I. Marrin & Sons
149 Sandgate Road
Folkestone
Kent / CT20 2DA
GREAT BRITAIN


Phone: 011 44 130 325 3016
(Posted by Ron Lieberman, http://tinyurl.com/25ltm)
___________________________________

From John Marrin's website:

"John Marrin specializes in finding rare books and interesting items from
the first World War." (http://www.johnmarrin.com/)

Sounds as good a place to start as any.

--
John
http://rarebooksinjapan.com

"michael adams" wrote in message ...
"Art Layton" wrote in message
om...

Ah, yes, the Battle of the Somme. England's finest moment. Sixty
thousuand men march shoulder to shoulder across open fields into
german machine guns. By the end of the day, sixty thousand are dead.


...

No it was around 19 thousand actually. Around one third of of the
reported casualities.

Sorry, got confused with the Third Battle of Ypres. also known as
Passcehndaele. At the Tyne Cot Cemetary, there are 12, 000 graves and
a memorial to 35, 000 men whose bodies were not found.

Art Layton
Stamford CT

(Art=A0Layton)wrote:
If you were collecting books (fiction and non-fiction) about WWI (The
Great War), where would you start? These would have to be printed or
translated in english..........

Art,

You might enjoy reading an ALS from
the War Poet, Robert Nichols. I posted it to RCB back in November,
2001: http:www.tinyurl.com/yt4xd

At that time I was thinking of beginning a collection of War Poets, but
never followed through. In my travels, however, I did acquire a copy
of '"233 Items From the Library of Siegfried Sassoon," a catalogue from
the House of El Dieff ( I collect catalogues of the libraries of
authors, bibliophiles, etc.). Some of the books in Sassoon's library
were presentation copies from other war poets. At any rate, the
catalogue is relatively inexpensive and worth reading.

Jerry Morris


Welcome to Moi's Books About Books: http://www.tinyurl.com/hib7
My Sentimental Library http://www.picturetrail.com/mylibrary and
moislibrary.com http://www.tinyurl.com/hisn

"Tom L-M" wrote in message
...

Plus - I would think any collection of WW1 is incomplete without poetry
from
the trenches - Sassoon, Owen, Brooke and Graves not to mention the
multitude
of others, no less virtuous yet simply forgotten!



The finest private press book in my collection is a copy of Sassoon's *The
Path to Peace* (Worcester: Stanbrook Abbey Press, 1960), # 83/500, described
as part of the "wonderous flowering from the Stanbrook Abbey Press: in a few
years from 1956 the Benedictine sisters in their print-shop, armed with
elegant, newly acquired types by the eminent Dutch typographer Jan van
Krimpen and with a devoted scriptorium, made several books--among them . . .
Siegfried Sassoon's *The Path to Peace* (1960) celebrating his
conversion--in which the love of the task well done seems to shine from the
page."--John Byrne, "Private Press Books," in *Antiquarian Books: A
Companion*, ed. P. Bernard (Philadelphia: U. of Penn. Pr., 1994), p. 338.



William M. Klimon
http://www.gateofbliss.com