World War I Europe:
The Home Front
Jump to: True Historical Novels by authors born after the war
Classic Novels by authors who lived through the war
The years at the beginning of the twentieth century were years of great cultural shifts in Europe, as women and the lower classes began pushing for a more equal voice in society. The war did nothing to slow these changes, and probably accellerated them as women coped at home while their husbands and sons fought the war, as doctors and nurses struggled to save soldiers suffering from horrendous battlefield wounds or tried to stem the ravages of the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic. Prejudices against people who were different, foreigners or homosexuals, came into the open. And the mysteriously beautiful dancer Mata Hari was accused of being a German spy.
True Historical Novels
by authors born after the war
Click on the title for more information from Powell's Books or another online source, or if you're outside the U.S., try The Book Depository.
Robert Dinsdale, The Harrowing (2009), about a young man in working class Leeds whose parents force him to take his brother's place as a soldier in World War I after he seriously injures his brother.
Helen Dunmore, Zennor in Darkness (1993), about D.H. Lawrence and his German-born wife and their Cornish neighbors’ suspicion of them during the war years. Robert Edric, In Desolate Heaven (1997), about a woman in 1919 Switzerland who meets two ex-officers who served in World War I and are trying to escape their memories. Mackenzie Ford, Gifts of War (2008, titled The Kissing Gates in the U.K.), about a British soldier who, during the 1914 Christmas Truce, promises to find a German soldier's English girlfriend and let her know he's thinking of her, but then falls in love with her himself. Review Robert Goddard, In Pale Battalions (1988), about an aristocratic British family in the years after World War I. Philippa Gregory, Fallen Skies (1993), about a British officer and the woman he marries in the war's aftermath. Jessica Gregson, The Angel Makers (2011), about the women in a remote Hungarian village whose lives improve when their men go away to war, and who resort to extreme measures to preserve their freedom after the war ends. Rosie Harris, Whispers of Love (2010), about a woman who gives her baby up for adoption after her fiancé is killed at sea in 1914, and then regrets her decision.
Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, The White Road (2005), about the fictional Morland family at the outbreak of World War I; #28 in the Morland Dynasty series, which begins in medieval England.
Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, The Burning Roses (2006), about a British family in 1915 as the First World War continues with the men overseas and the women at home; #29 in the Morland Dynasty series. Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, The Measure of Days (2007), about a British family in 1917 as five of the family's men fight in the horrific Battle of the Somme; #30 in the Morland Dynasty series. Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, The Foreign Field (2009), about a British family in 1916 as the war continues and one of the family's women goes to France as a nurse; #31 in the Morland Dynasty series. Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, The Fallen Kings (2009), about a British family in 1918 as many of the family face danger during the final year of the war; #32 in the Morland Dynasty series.
Audrey Howard, Whispers On The Water (2002), historical romance about a young British woman in love with a man whose spirit is broken in the Great War.
Audrey Howard, As The Night Ends (2005), historical romance about a British suffragette in love with a surgeon and separated from him, first by a quarrel and then by war. Audrey Howard, All the Dear Faces (1992), historical romance about two young women, one from a large Irish family and the other from an aristocratic family in Liverpool during the years before and during the First World War. Meg Hutchinson, Friendship’s Bond (2011), about an orphaned young woman evicted by her guardian after she rejects his advances, and accused of living in sin with the Russian boy she promised her father she would protect. Reina James, This Time of Dying (2006), about an undertaker who struggles to persuade authorities to close ports and institute quarantines as the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic begins to claim huge numbers of victims. Review from the London Independent Maureen Lee, Martha's Journey (2010), about a mother who is horrified to learn that her fourteen-year-old son has joined the army in exchange for a shilling, and decides to walk from Liverpool to London to bring the government's attention to the exploitation of underage boys as soldiers. Elizabeth Lord, All That We Are (2010), about a husband and wife in London's East End whose happy family life is disrupted when one daughter steals the other daughter's fiancé. Henning Mankell, Depths (2006), about a Swedish submarine captain’s affair with a woman on an isolated island. James Meek, The People’s Act of Love (2005), set in Siberia during the end of World War I. Deborah Moggach, In the Dark (2007), about the war's effect on the lives of ordinary Londoners. Alan Monaghan, The Soldier’s Song (2010), about a working class Irishman who volunteers to fight in World War I in 1914 and returns in 1916 to find his brother fighting for Irish independence from England; #2 in the Stephen Ryan series. Alan Monaghan, The Soldier’s Return (2011), about an Irish soldier who returns from fighting in World War I to find conflict raging at home as Sinn Fein fights for Irish independence; #2 in the Stephen Ryan series. Review at the Independent Pamela Oldfield, Loving and Losing (2009), about an English woman waiting for her scientist husband to return from the U.S. during the 1918 influenza epidemic. Michelle Paver, The Serpent’s Tooth (2005), about a woman living with a tragic secret and her search for emotional peace during World War I. Piers Paul Read, Alice in Exile (2001), about a free-thinking daughter of a radical publisher, rejected by her aristocratic lover when she becomes pregnant, who accepts a position as governess to a Russian family during the years of World War I and the Russian Revolution.
Phillip Rock, The Passing Bells (1979), about changes in the British class structure during the World War I years.
Phillip Rock, Circles Of Time (1982), about an aristocratic British family during the years after World War I; sequel to The Passing Bells. Phillip Rock, A Future Arrived (1985), about an aristocratic British family during the World War II years; sequel to The Passing Bells and Circles of Time.
David Semmel, 11th of Av (2010), about a Jewish community in a small Galician town, which becomes scattered during World War I; self-published.
Jody Shields, The Crimson Portrait (2006), about doctors and nurses caring for men whose faces were destroyed in the war. Richard Skinner, The Red Dancer: The Life and Times of Mata Hari (2001), about the Dutch woman who reinvented herself as an exotic dancer in Paris and was believed to be a spy for the Germans during World War I. Wilbur Smith, The Burning Shore (1985), about a Frenchwoman’s struggles during World War I and her effort to make a new life for herself in South Africa. Nick Stafford, Armistice (2009), about a young woman who discovers her fiancé was shot and killed just minutes after the Armistice was declared and sets out to learn the truth behind his death. Review at The Guardian Penny Vincenzi, No Angel (2000), a love story set in London and New York during the First World War. Kate Walbert, A Short History of Women (2009), a literary novel in the form of linked short stories about the daughter of a woman who starved herself to death for women's suffrage, and her descendants to the present day. Review at Powell's blog Louisa Young, My Dear I Wanted to Tell You (2011), about two English couples, one aristocratic, the other of differing class backgrounds, and their experiences as the husbands and wives are separated by World War I and one of the husbands later returns, horrifically injured.
Classic Novels
by authors who lived through the war
This is a selection of a few classic novels and is not intended to be a complete list.Click on the title for more information from Powell's Books or another online source, or if you're outside the U.S., try The Book Depository.
A.T. Fitzroy, Despised and Rejected (1918), about the persecution of British gays and lesbians, pacifists and Jews during World War I; a contemporary novel at the time it was written; when originally published, it was seized and banned and the publisher fined; A.T. Fitzroy was a pseudonym of Rose Laure Allantini Scott.
Ford Madox Ford, Parade’s End (1924-1928), about the conflicts between a man who considers himself the last Edwardian gentleman and his wife during the World War I years; four linked novels in one volume. Somerset Maugham, Ashenden, or: The British Agent (1928), a collection of short stories about a sophisticated gentleman spy during World War I; based on the author’s war experiences. Joseph Roth, The Radetzky March (1932), about the decline of the aristocratic way of life in the Austro-Hungarian empire as the First World War approaches. Oyzer Warshawsky, Smugglers (1919; English edition 2008), about the Jewish community in Poland during the WWI German occupation.
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