Publishing in the First World War

The twelve essays in this book explore in depth for the first time the publishing and reading practices which were formed and changed by the First World War. Ranging from an exploration of British and Australian trench journals and the reading practices of Indian soldiers to the impact of war on the literary figures of the home front in Britain, these essays provide crucial new historical information about the production, circulation and reception of reading matter during a period of international crisis.

MARY HAMMOND is Lecturer in Literature and Book History at the Open University, UK. She is the author of Reading, Publishing and the Formation of Literary Taste in England 1880-1914 (2006). She is also project manager of ‘The Reading Experience Database 1450-1945’.
SHAFQUAT TOWHEED teaches at the Institute of English Studies, University of London, UK and the Open University, UK. He is currently writing a study on the intersections of international copyright law and literature, and editing Edith Wharton’s correspondence with Macmillan Publishers.

List of Illustrations * List of Tables * Acknowledgements * Notes on Contributors * Introduction–M.Hammond & S.Towheed * PART 1: PROFIT AND PATRIOTISM * For Country, Conscience and Commerce: Publishers and Publishing, 1914-1918–J.Potter * ‘No such bookselling has ever before taken place in this country’: Propaganda and the Wartime Distribution Practices of W.H. Smith and Son–S.Colclough * Translating Peace: Pacifist Publishing and the Transmission of Foreign Texts–G.Brockington * PART 2: READING AND NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS * Sepoys, Sahibs and Babus: India, the Great War and Two Colonial Journals–S.Das * The Battle of the Books: Supplying Prisoners of War–R.Pöppinghege * Australian Soldiers and the World of Print During the Great War–A.Laugesen * PART 3: WRITING THE TRENCHES * The Tuition of Manhood: ‘Sapper’s’ War Stories and the Literature of War–J.Meyer * British Army Trench Journals and a Geography of Identity–J.Pegum * ‘A New and Vital Moral Factor’: Cartoon Book Publishing in Britain during the First World War–N.Hiley * PART 4: ENLISTED AT HOME * Translating Propaganda: John Buchan’s Writing during the First World War–K.Macdonald * Making a Text the Fordian Way: Between St Dennis and St George, Propaganda and the First World War–S.Haslam * Depicting the War on the Western Front: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the Publication of The British Campaign in France and Flanders–K.Grieves * Select Bibliography * Index