Stuart Little

This children's novel, published in 1945, is set in New York City. The central character is the son of ordinary human parents but has the appearance and stature of a mouse. He proves to be “a great help to his parents, and to his older brother George, because of his small size and because he could do things that a mouse can do and was agreeable about doing them”. His father thinks it important that Stuart should in his childhood be shielded from references to violence against mice, insisting that his wife tear from the nursery songbook the page about blind mice. He felt strongly that he didn't want Stuart to “grow up fearing that a farmer’s wife was going to cut off his tail with a carving knife”.

The author, E.B. White (born 11 July 1899) grew up in New York City. He studied at Cornell University and served as editor of the student newspaper. In October 1918, he joined the university's training corps in preparation for service overseas but the armistice meant he was quickly discharged before seeing any action. After university, he started work as a journalist. When The New Yorker was founded in 1925, he submitted articles and was later taken on by the magazine as a staff writer. He married the magazine's literary editor, Katharine Angell (née Sergeant), in 1929. In the same year, his first collection of poems was published. Although he went on to write a wide variety of books, he is best remembered for his three novels for children, one of which, Charlotte's Web, was a Newbury Medal finalist. In 1970, he won the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, a lifetime-achievement award for contribution to children's literature.

The adventures of the plucky central character include a naval contest on a pond in Central Park. Dressed in a sailor suit, he volunteers to go ‘to sea’, telling the owner of a model boat “I'm looking for a berth in a good ship and I thought perhaps you might sign me on. I'm strong and I'm quick”. The owner asks him to race against another boat and Stuart details how he intends to defeat the other boat:
“I'll catch the sloop broad on and rake her with fire from my forward gun”. The owner argues that he wants it to be “a boat race, not a naval engagement”. Stuart, therefore, promises to “sail [the boat] straight and true”.

Against a Darkening Sky

This novel, published in 1942, is set in a semi-rural community south of San Francisco in the 1930s. The central character, Mary Perrault, is a Scottish immigrant married to a Swiss gardener. The focus of the novel is on her parenthood and her role as friend and leader in the local community. It's an account of survival in the Great Depression and is shaped by the author's own experience and that of her friends living in the same context.

The author, Janet Lewis (born 17 August 1899), the daughter of a professor of English literature, grew up in Chicago. Her brother, Herbert, served in the army during the First World War. Her first appearances in print were contributions to a high-school literary magazine alongside those of Ernest Hemingway. She studied at the University of Chicago and as a student was an active member of the city's poetry club. Chiefly a poet, her first collection of poems was published in 1922. She had married a fellow poet, Yvor Winters, in 1926 and they moved to California when he was appointed to a position at Stanford. The two ran a literary magazine, which they had founded, from 1929 to 1931. Her first novel appeared in 1932 and she went on to write a further four novels, the most acclaimed of which is the historical novel The Wife of Martin Guerre, published in 1941.

When a friend of the family is killed, the Perraults, even though they have endured hardship, feel unaccustomed to this kind of event:
“Tragedy such as this was unreal to the Perraults, and doubly unreal since it was in the paper. The newsprint gave it, for them, the quality of fiction — something read of, not experienced. They were not able to believe that something so dreaded had actually happened to someone whom they knew. So they watched the papers through the ensuing days...”

All Alone

This children's novel, published in 1953, is set in a small mountain community in the French region of Savoie. The central character, Marcel Mabout, as a ten-year-old boy is sent from the village to the highland pasture to stay with his family's three cattle during the months of summer. The tradition in the village is each man for himself and his father warns him against having anything to do with the other boys looking after cattle in nearby mountain pastures. In his own gently courageous way he brings about a socialist revolution for the village.

The author, Claire Bishop (née Huchet, born 30 December 1898), was born in Geneva. She studied at the Sorbonne in Paris but dropped out of university to pursue hr interest in storytelling. In 1924, she opened France’s first library for children. After she married Frank Bishop, an American pianist, she moved to New York City. There she oversaw the children’s reading room of the city’s public library. Her first book for children was published in 1938 and more than 20 further books were published. Two of her books were shortlisted for the Newbery Medal: Pancake-Paris (1948) and this book.

Marcel, the young hero of the story, tells his fellow herdboy Pierre that he wants to change the behaviour of the people of the village:
“When I'm a man, I'll say to everybody in Monestier, ‘Let's do everything all together!’  He opened his arms wide in a large gesture.”
His actions convince the people:
“We began to see that there is a better way of life than each man for himself and the state for all. We began to see that if we would get together of our own accord, life might be better in Monestier.”

Bugles in the Afternoon

This historical novel, published in 1943, is set in Montana. It's an account of the devastating outcome for General George Custer's 7th Cavalry Regiment at the Battle of Little Bighorn. The background to the battle is described from the perspective of Lieutenant Kern Shafter and his one-time friend and now bitter adversary Edward Garnett. The high level of casualties due to the inept overconfidence of a general is viewed in the aftermath of the trench warfare of the First World War.

The author, Ernest Haycox (born 1 October 1899), grew up in Portland, Oregon. At the age of 16, he joined the army and served on the Mexican border in a campaign against the forces of Pancho Villa. When the United States entered the First World War, he went with the 162nd Infantry to the Western Front and served as a rifle instructor and military policeman. After the war, he studied journalism in the University of Oregon. From 1924 to 1926 he lived in New York City where he became deeply interested in the American Revolution. He made several trips to battlefields in New England and wrote eight stories and two novellas set during that era. Returning to Oregon in 1926, he decided to concentrated on writing Westerns. He went on to write more than 20 novels and numerous short stories. Several of his works were the basis of well-known films in this genre, most notable of which is Stagecoach.

Some of the scenes in the Battle of Little Bighorn resemble those of the trench warfare of the First World War:
“Bullets whipped by and scraped up flinty showers of earth. Shafter breathed from the bottom of his lungs; he heard men from the higher parapet call him forward. He reached the top and half turned to look behind him and at that moment he was struck hard in the body and he dropped to his hands and knees and was puzzled at his fall. He started to rise again and saw Lieutenant Edgerly striding toward him. He reached out for Edgerly’s hand but his own arm grew too heavy and fell back.”

The Compass Points North

This children's novel, published in 1938, is set on the English-Scottish border. It featured the same Dorset siblings (Jane, Oliver and Bill Lockett) that were introduced in her 1936 novel August Adventure. The premise of this novel is that another group of children (Fenella, Podge, Edward and Pip) are on a camping holiday on the English-Scottish border. The setting prompts an idea of a role-playing border skirmish between the Ancient Britons and the combined Picts and Scots. Being on the southern side of the frontier, they think of themselves as the Ancient Britons but long to have an ‘enemy’ to play with. Then the Lockett children arrive on the Scottish side to stay with twins Morwenna and Esme Vardon. Battle commences soon after.

The author, Mary Evelyn Atkinson (born 20 June 1899), was born in London. Her father was a schoolmaster and by 1911, his work had taken the family to Swanage, Dorset. She was educated at Leeson House, a local boarding school for girls. Her brother, Geoffrey, was killed in action in February 1917 while serving with the Indian Army in Kut, Iraq. Her first children's book was published in 1936 and a further 13 novels about the Lockett children were published in the following 25 years. In addition, she wrote a shorter series of novels about a pony called Fricka, as well as short stories. She had started her career as an author with the publication of a play in 1931 and five further one-act plays were published in the 1930s.

One of the children is taken prisoner and when released, he returns to his camp to report that “they said it was to be a war”. Jane respons to the news with determination: “They'll get ‘war’ all right! We'll avenge you. Trust us! They’d better look out.” Later Jane after a success in the battlefield reflects “what a pity it was that, not being a boy, she could not become a soldier and lead real men to victory. There was Boadicea, of course, but women didn't seem to do that sort of thing nowadays.”

Barrie & Daughter

This coming-of-age novel, published in 1943, is set in rural Kentucky in the early twentieth century. It is inspired by her own upbringing in the northeast of the state. The central character, Fern Barrie, the eldest daughter of her family, has no desire to choose either of the options her mother has in mind for her adult life: housewife or teacher. When her father decides to set up a store for the local community in competition with a store that was trading unfairly, she wants to be involved in running it. She is at the forefront of building up the business while wisely handling the conflict with the hot-headed, gun-toting owner of the rival store.

The author, Rebecca Caudill (born 2 February 1899) grew up in Harlan County in northeast Kentucky. She studied at Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia and afterwards began work as a high-school teacher. She lived most of her adult life in Urbana, Illinois. Her first book (this one) was published in 1943. Her 1949 novel Tree of Freedom, about the War of Independence, was shortlisted for the Newberry Award, while A Pocketful of Cricket was shortlisted for the Caldecott Medal in 1964. She wrote 18 books for children and several works of non-fiction, including the memoir My Appalachia. There is an annual young readers book award in Illinois named in her honour.

The later chapters of the novel are mostly concerned with the local rivalry surrounding the election (see the illustration above). The central character belongs to one of very few Democrat families in the community. He faces threats to his life from hotheaded Republicans but maintains a pacifist stance:
“I put no trust in guns... An honest education's the only defense a democracy needs, or can rightfully use, for that matter.” The author recalled in her memoir the election day atmosphere of her childhood:
“drinking, quarrelling, shooting, feuding, and generally disturbing the peace”.

I Go by Sea, I Go by Land

This novel, published in 1941, is set in England and the United States during the Second World War. It takes the form of a diary of Sabrina, the 11-year-old daughter of an English airman, who, with her younger brother, is evacuated from the family home in Sussex to stay with her aunt in New England. On hearing that their small village had been bombed, their aunt Harriet had sent a telegram: “Send children at once. Would be so delighted. Sure it is wisest.”

The author, P.L. Travers (née Lyndon Goff, born 9 August 1899), spent her early childhood in Queensland. On the death of her father in 1907, the family moved to Bowral, New South Wales. She was educated at a boarding school in Sydney. She began writing poetry and her first poems were published while she was a teenager. After leaving school, she worked for a time as an actor and dancer. She moved to England in 1924. In 1933, she began to write the book that was to make her famous — Mary Poppins. It was published the following year and she went on to write numerous books about the character.She also wrote several other novels, further poetry, a play and a few works of non-fiction.

Sabrina, the central character, describes her leave-taking from her father very much from her father's perspective:
“He took James and me and held us tightly to his sides. I could feel the bones in his leg and the bones in his arm. He looked at us for a long time as though he were remembering every bit of our faces... He said ‘Sabrina and James, there are two things that are more important than any others — Love and Courage. Will you remember?’ He said if we kept that in our minds our going to America would be easy. He said that it would be a weight off his mind to have us there while he was fighting. And that he would take care of Mother for us and as soon as the war was over we would be all together again.”

Bird of the Wilderness

This impressive coming-of-age novel, published in 1941, has the unusual setting of a German-American small town during the First World War. The small town called Parkerton is based on the the the Illinois town of Pana, where the author grew up. The central character, Bill, is the teenaged son of a Dresden-born mother, who teaches music to the children of the town's leading families, and an absent Welsh father. Bill has no sympathy for his uncle's blinkered pro-German patriotism and longs for the day when he can escape small-town life and join the army.

The author, Vincent Sheean (born 5 December 1899), was brought up in Illinois. He went to the University of Chicago and interrupted his studies in 1918 to join the army with a view to serving in Europe. He was disappointed when the armistice came: “I was sorry when the war ended... There were millions of us, young Americans between the ages of 15 or 16 and 18 or 19, who cursed freely all through the middle weeks of November. We felt cheated. We had been put into uniform with the definite promise that we were to be trained as officers and sent to France.” He returned to university in March 1919. On the death of his mother the following year, he moved to New York to start a career in journalism. In 1922 he moved to France to work for the Chicago Tribune, travelling widely as one of its foreign correspondents. In addition to his reporting, he wrote works of fiction, biography and memoir. He wrote a young autobiography called Personal History as he observed the rise of fascism in Europe. It was later adapted into an Alfred Hitchcock film.

There is a rising conflict for Bill Owen, the central character, between his German parentage and his American upbringing. His mother, Louisa, "was filled with foreboding; the year was 1916 and two of her brothers and no fewer than seven nephews were in Germany; she had produced an alien son in a strange land, and although the land was also hers... the growth of her son was setting her apart from it...”
Bill talks about his mother's native country as a detached foreigner:
“The Germans are killing Americans all the time, sinking our ships, insulting us every day, and that Wilson does nothing at all about it except send notes and notes and notes.”

The Singing Tree

This impressive children's novel, published in 1939, is set in rural Hungary during the First World War. The central character, Jancsi, as an adolescent, takes charges of the large family farm when his father leaves for the front. A contemporary review considered it “as moving a plea as I can imagine for maintaining racial and international goodwill”. In particular, the novel describes the close relationship between the Hungarians and the Jews in the village, the mutual respect between the Hungarian family and the Russian prisoners of war who they engage as farm labourers and the friendship towards hungry German children who are sent to the farm for nutrition towards the end of the war. The title of the novel comes from a story which Jancsi’s father tells the family about a battlefield where only one tree survives the devastation. All the birds of different sizes come and sit in the tree and sing. One of the characters recognises that he's also using this story to talk about his farm as a place of wartime refuge.

The author, Kate Seredy (née Serédy Kató, born 10 November 1899), grew up in Budapest. She served as a nurse to the wounded during the First World War. After the war she qualified as an art teacher. She emigrated to the United States in 1922. Her first novel (The Good Master, set in Hungary, with her own illustrations) was published in 1935 and was shortlisted for the Newbury Medal. Her third novel, The White Stag, won her the Newbury Medal in 1938 and her fourth novel (this one) was, like The Good Master, of which it is the sequel, shortlisted for the Newbury Medal. She settled in Montgomery in New York State. During her career, she wrote and illustrated 12 books of her own and illustrated many other books for children.

Jancsi and his father (before leaving for the Front)

Hans, one of the German refugee children who come to live on the farm, writes home to his mother in the autumn of 1917:
“These people do not hate anyone. In our school in Berlin we were told that Russians and English and French are monsters... That is not true, Mother. The six Russians... are like German men, like Papa. Maybe the French and English men are the same. Our teacher told a lie about the Jews too...
I do not hate Russians now, Mother, and I think the Jews are very kind and good. When I grow up, I want to be a teacher and teach what Grigori is always saying. He says that people are all the same in Russia and Germany and Hungary and that we are all brothers. It's true, Mother. Why did our teacher in Berlin lie to us?”

Luckypenny

This satirical novel, published in 1937, is largely set in London with scenes in France, Italy and Spain. With elements of the Eric Ambler thrillers (in which an ordinary man takes on the role of secret agent or detective), this novel features James Luckypenny, a lowly accounts clerk in an English firm that manufactures armaments. When he urgently needs a pay rise, he makes a deal with his boss to go to Italy, obtain the firm’s funds that are trapped in an Italian subsidiary (Mussolini had banned the removal of money from the country) and smuggle it back to England in his artificial leg (the result of a war injury). The success of the mission is brought about by a romantic liaison with Zenaida, a high-ranking Fascist agent, and the two meet again in Barcelona towards the end of the novel during the early stages of civil war.

The author, Bruce Marshall (born 24 June 1899), grew up in Edinburgh. He served in the First World War initially as a private in the Highland Light Infantry and then as a second lieutenant in the Royal Irish Fusiliers. In early November 1918, he was severely wounded on the Western Front. He was rescued by a German medical orderlies and taken prisoner. His injury (as in the case of the central character of this novel) resulted in a leg amputation. He was invalided out of the army in 1920 and resumed his education at the University of St Andrews. His first collection of short stories was written while a student there. After graduation, he worked as an accountant while setting out on a part-time writing career. His first novel was published in 1924. He summed up his reputation in his two spheres of work: “I am an accountant who writes books. In accounting circles I am hailed as a great writer. Among novelists I am assumed to be a competent accountant.” After the Second World War, he settled in France and committed himself to a full-time literary career. he went on to write numerous works of fiction as well as an acclaimed biography of F.F.E. Yeo-Thomas, a British agent in the Second World War, who, like the author, lived in France after the war.

The author, presumably from experience, writes about the central character’s loss of reputation and self-esteem in the years following the war:
“Immediately after the war, Luckypenny... out of uniform, had ceased to be a person of consequence. Ten years after the war, Luckypenny had [looked back towards] the war, remembering its humours and comradeships, and forgetting its horrors. Fifteen years after the war, Luckypenny quite frankly desired war, with all its mud and cold and pain; he wanted to be somebody again, but above all he wanted to do something that he knew was worth doing...”

Snow Country

Originally a short story, this novel, first published in serialised form between 1935 and 1937, and appearing later in an extended and revised edition in 1948, is set in the mountains of western Honshu. The exact location, though not specified in the text, is the onsen (spa) resort of Yuzawa in Niigita Prefecture. The central character, Shimamura, visiting from Tokyo, has an affair with Komako, a young geisha. Much of the novel is concerned with mortality, including the final scene.

The author, Yasunari Kawabata (born 11 June 1899), was born in Osaka. Orphaned at the age of 4, he was brought up by his grandparents. He left school in March 1917 and moved to Tokyo, where he prepared for entry to Tokyo Imperial University in 1920. He graduated with a literature degree in 1924, by which he time his contributions to literary magazines had already gained him a reputation as a writer, his first publication being a short story in 1921. His 1926 short story Izu no odoriko (The Izu Dancer) reinforced his growing reputation. His first novel was published in 1930. In 1968 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature with specific recognition for three novels: this novel, as well as Senbazuru (Thousand Cranes) and Koto (The Old Capital).

The author’s preoccupation with mortality begins in the early pages of the novel with the central character's observation of a terminally-ill young man being nursed on the train journey that brings him to the resort. The novel concludes with a potentially fatal incident, a fire in a warehouse:

“Shimamura put his arm around Komako’s shoulders.
‘What is there to be afraid of?’
’No, no. no!’ Komako shook her head and burst into tears...
She had burst out weeping at the sight of the fire, and Shimamura held her to him without thinking to wonder what had so upset her.
She stopped weeping as quickly as she had begun, and pulled away from him.
‘There's a movie in the warehouse. Tonight. The place will be full of people... People will be hurt. People will burn to death’.”

Skutarevsky

This novel, published in 1932, is largely set in Moscow. E.J. Brown in his Russian Literature since the Revolution regarded it as “probably one of his best works in style and intellectual power”, observing how it  “explores the psychological problems of an eminent scientist working in a socialist state and in what is undoubtedly an autobiographical statement, traces his development from a sceptical critic of the new order into an enthusiastic supporter.” The central character, Sergei Skutarevsky, is a physicist, who has been reluctant to engage with the Revolution. In a meeting with Lenin to discuss his participation in an electrification scheme, he gives his approval in a very cautious way: “Yes, but I have certain doubts”. Whereas his character becomes more politically loyal during the progress of the novel, several members of Skutarevsky’s family are shown to be disloyal and are on a path to self-destruction.

The author, Leonid Leonov (born 31 May 1899), grew up in Moscow. In 1907 his father was exiled to the northern city of Arkhangelsk for publishing two pamphlets with content deemed subversive. He began writing while at school and he had poems published as early as 1915 in his father's periodical. He had intended to study medicine in Moscow but was unable to leave Arkhangelsk due to the civil war. He served as a reporter with the Red Army until 1921. On returning to Moscow, he was introduced to prominent literary figures and his first short stories were published in 1922. His first novel was published in 1924. He went on to write a further five novels as well as several plays. He received the Lenin Prize for his 1953 novel Russki les (The Russian Forest).

In a recollection of the civil war, the author tells of how a friendship grew out of two soldiers’ co-operation in helping a wounded comrade:
“Their partisan code did not allow them to leave a live man to a piecemeal burial by the wild animals. They were still far from being friends then. They crossed hands and made a chair, sat the old man on it and cautiously set off carrying him. He was delirious but so were they; he grew heavier and heavier; his iron-shod squat-toed high boots dangled and banged against their knees. They were nearly in tears. They pulled his boots off. But then the balance was different and he kept falling back. So without saying a word, they pressed shoulder against shoulder to keep him upright. That was the beginning of their strange friendship; that firm, intercrossed grip of hands, compact as any oath, lasting all through a night which was longer than a century.”

The General

This novel, published in 1936, is largely set on the Western Front. The central character, Herbert Curzon, is an English army officer who receives promotion after promotion, these due more to circumstances than to his own talent or success. To an extent his preferment and his own self-belief depends on his rigidity in keeping to well-established military practice and discipline. In several places, he’s portrayed as being callously uncaring towards members of his family due to his insistence on upholding military order.

The author, C.S. Forester (né Cecil Smith, born 27 August 1899), grew up in London. On finishing school in 1917, he tried to enlist in the army but was deemed physically unfit for service. He spent three years studying medicine but did not graduate. Instead in 1921 he committed himself to pursuing a career as a writer. His first novel was published in 1924. He went on to write more than 40 novels, including the First World War novel, The African Queen, as well as short stories, plays (including one concerning the First World War martyr Edith Cavell) and several works of non-fiction. Perhaps best known for his Horatio Hornblower series, he was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction in 1938 for the second and third books in the series.

Probably the most acerbic depiction of the generals at the Western Front is this analogous summary of a strategy meeting in late 1915:
“In some ways it was like the debate of a group of savages as to how to extract a screw from a piece of wood. Accustomed only to nails, they had made one effort to pull out the screw by main force, and now that it had failed they were devising methods of applying more force still, of obtaining more efficient pincers, of using levers and fulcrums so that more men could bring their strength to bear. They could hardly be blamed for not guessing that by rotating the screw it would come out after the exertion of far less effort; it would be a notion so different from anything they had ever encountered that they would laugh at the man who suggested it.”

The Olive Field

This proletarian novel, published in 1936, is set in Andalusia and Asturias between 1932 and 1934. The central character, Joaquín Caro, leaves the small Andalusian town of Los Olivares de Don Fadrique following the brutal suppression of a workers’ protest. He goes to Asturias with his wife Lucía and later takes part in the unsuccessful revolution of October 1934 before returning to Los Olivares to begin again.

The author, Ralph Bates (born 3 November 1899), grew up in the southern English railway town of Swindon and his first job was in a railway factory. He enlisted in the army in 1917 and served with the Royal West Surrey Regiment. After the war, he returned to the factory and became interested in the workers’ political movement. He moved to Spain in 1923. His first book (a collection of short stories) was published in 1933 and his first novel appeared in the following year. He served with the International Brigades during the civil war and afterwards emigrated to Mexico. In 1947 he moved to New York to lecture in creative writing and English literature at New York University and he worked there until his retirement in 1966. Although he had continued to write, his last book to be published had appeared in 1950. Before his death as centenarian, he had been writing a history of the Greek island of Naxos, where he had been living, as well as a collection of poems.

The suppression of the workers’ protest in Los Olivares resembles the slaughter of advancing soldiers on the Flanders battlefields:
“ ‘They're coming, the bastards,’ shouted the sergeant of the Civil Guard... and Montaña wrenched his pistol from its holster and shouted, ‘Fire!'. Rifles flew up and the muzzles came down to the waistline of the advancing fours of the procession and the first volley cracked like lightning... The leading ranks crumpled and blew apart as if a terrific ráfaga had whirled among them, an uplifted placard spun round and the paper was torn away by an invisible thong which whipped fragments of wood into the air. The screams of the procession and the thundering of the rifles drowned Montaña’s cracking voice as he yelled, ‘Fire! Fire!’

Cradle of Life

This epic novel, published in 1936, is a fictional autobiography set in Croatia in the late 19th century and early 20th century. The narrator, Rudo Stanka, born to a young aristocratic mother out of wedlock in 1889, spends his early childhood as a foster child in a peasant family in a village near Zagreb. Ten years later his wealthy grandfather finds him and purchases a large country estate for him. Towards the end of the novel, Rudo increasingly turns his affections towards his peasant foster mother and her family and shows socialist sympathies. His attitude to the aristocracy which he was born into and which he benefits from is increasingly sceptical and he considers radical changes to the systems that uphold the status quo. A peculiar feature of the novel is the author's deconstruction of the narrator into Rudo at different ages, each age conversing with each other about his perspective on life.

The author, Louis Adamič (born 23 March 1898; his official year of birth in the United States was 1899 as he needed to subtract a year from his age in order to leave Austria-Hungary in 1913), grew up in Lower Carniola in southern Slovenia. Having become involved in nationalist politics and been expelled from school, he left for America in December 1913. At first he lived in New England and by 1916 was working in Boston as a reporter. Towards the end of the First World War, he served with the United States Army on the Western Front. After the war he continued to work as a journalist. His first book (a work of political non-fiction) was published in 1931. In his 1934 book, The Native's Return, he described a visit he made to his native country. His first novel appeared in 1935 and was followed in 1936 by this one. Among his other books were other autobiographical books and several publications promoting ethnic diversity in the United States. His book From Many Lands was the non-fiction winner of the Anisfeld-Wolf Book Award (for books promoting multiculturalism) in 1941.

The central character Rudo’s aristocratic mentor, Prince Arbogast von Hohengraetz, gives Rudo his personal insight into the character of Franz Ferdinand:
“I make no claim to being a prophet but mark my words, this century will be a century of explosions and unless I am greatly mistaken, this fellow F.F. will be a factor in starting or bringing them about... He is essentially stupid, yet forges ahead. He is virtually regent already. And who is his great friend but that Mich-und-Gott lunatic in Berlin, who is also 17th century or even further back, a robber baron imbued with the Bismarckian Drang nach Osten idea.”
At the very end of the novel, Rudo’s brother-in-law discusses the latest news:
“I read in the newspapers that Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand is to be in Sarajevo tomorrow and is there to be officially received — on Vidov dan [an important Serbian holiday]! He is now on the way to Bosnia to witness the great army manoeuvres. All of which, obviously, is intended to be a high-handed gesture against the pro-Serbian and Yugoslav feeling in Bosnia, Croatia and Slovenia.”

Woman of Glenshiels

This impassioned industrial novel, published in 1935, is set in a small town near Glasgow in the first three decades of the 20th century. It's a sequel to the 1932 novel Glenshiels. The strong-willed central character, Mary Bassett, leaves school in 1908 at the age of 14 to begin work in the local meat factory. In the coming-of-age section of the novel, she grapples with the socialism of her boyfriend Donald. He overcomes conscientious objections to militarism and volunteers for the Western Front. At the end of the novel she speaks defiantly to her son, like a soldier having experienced a crushing defeat: “We willna stop fighting... us wha are the fighters.” All that she has been striving for as an adult life (all her economic ambitions) are lost and she begins to accept Donald’s socialist arguments about the class struggle.

The author, Lennox Kerr (born 1 July 1899), grew up in Paisley, near Glasgow. Like the heroine of this novel, he left school at the age of 14 to work in the local meat factory. In 1915, however, claiming to be 18 years old, he enlisted in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. He remained overseas until 1930. His first book, an account of some of his travels, was published in the same year. He went on to write 23 books for adults, including an autobiography, and 32 books for children (mostly using the pseudonym Peter Dawlish). Among these books were two historical accounts of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve.

As the central character Mary's boyfriend Donald prepares to leave for the Western Front, there are many similar scenes of farewell at the central station in Glasgow:
“Central Station was crowded with soldiers and sailors and their wives and parents. All over the station stood little groups of people and in the centre of every group was a soldier or sailor. Mostly they were laughing and joking. One group of men were drinking. The whisky bottles kept rising and pointing their bases upwards and then lowering. This group started singing and shouting.
Donald and Mary walked soberly to the train. Donald searched the length of the train but could find no seat. Every carriage was packed with kit-bags. He left his pack in the corridor and returned to Mary.
‘Looks like this'll be a wet passage,” he said, and smiled.
‘Hauf the fellas are drunk already.’
Mary was shocked. It was like laughing at a funeral, though she didn't have that simile.
‘It's a shame,’ she said. ‘And them goan tae France.’
Donald smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
‘Maybe that’s why.’ ”

Bitter Victory

This novel, published in 1935, is set in the Breton town of Saint-Brieuc in 1917. The central character, François Merlin (nicknamed Cripure), teaches philosophy to schoolboys. The character is based on Georges Palante, one of his own teachers. Cripure's personal descent into despair is set against the backdrop of a highly-demoralising French campaign on the Western Front. The novel was adapted for the stage by Marcel Maréchal in 1977, for television in 2006 and as an opera in 2014.

The author, Louis Guilloux (born 15 January 1899), grew up in Saint-Brieuc. He was educated at the local high school on a bursary. On leaving school in 1916, he began work as an assistant in a boarding school. After the war, he associated with the Paris literary scene and had several works of short fiction published. His first novel, partly based on his upbringing, was published in 1927. In addition to numerous works of fiction and non-fiction, he was also active as a translator of contemporary English literature into French. Since 1983, a literary award in his honour has been presented annually to Breton writers.

The central character, François Merlin, contrives a personal connection with the war. He makes contact with his estranged son (by a maidservant) Amédée:
“The war having come, Cripure reckoned that the slavey’s offspring must be of an age to go and be killed. And he had desired to find the lad... He wrote to the mayor of the little commune where the boy had grown up. Amédee had been mobilised, at the front for a year already. A correspondence had been struck up and it had been arranged that Amédée should come to see his father on his next leave.”
Amédée has a viciously cynical attitude to the war, corresponding with the increasing despondency in the troops and in society that produced mutinies and street protests. When his father is concerned about him being late to report to his unit, he gives a wilting retort:
“Oh, so far as that goes!.... I'm in no hurry, you know, father, to go and get my head shot off.”

Siesta

This novel, published in 1935, is set in the fictional town of Georgetown, Alabama. The central character, Dr Abercorn, while his assistant is travelling in Europe, takes on Laney Shields as a temporary nurse for his surgery. When she dies as a result of a back-street abortion, James Mc Farlane, the ambitious editor of the local newspaper, looks to discover who the father of the child was. Meanwhile someone feels they have information about the crime that can be used for blackmail.

The author, Berry Fleming (born 19 March 1899), grew up in Augusta, Georgia. He studied at Harvard University and after graduating in 1922, he returned home to work as a reporter for the local newspaper. In 1924, he moved to New York City to begin a career in literature. His first novel was published in 1927. He moved back to Augusta in 1940. His 1943 satirical novel, Colonel Effingham's Raid, proved popular and led to a film adaptation in 1946. For much of the fifties and sixties, he devoted his time to art. A final novel was published in 1973 and several further works of fiction were published posthumously. An annual book festival in his honour is hosted by Augusta University.

When Dr Abercorn's son reads about the death, even before the body is identified, he fears it is that of Laney Shields:
“He felt his face all of a sudden begin slowly fading into a sick grey, then becoming damp. Then the conviction broke over him like a wave that it was the coloured nurse who was dead! It lifted him to his feet and he stood there for a minute straddling the chair and staring at the musty wall. He felt nauseated. He pushed back his chair and went out. When he came back he was still pale.”

Paths of Glory

This novel, published in 1935, is a fictional account of an incident during the French campaign on the Western Front. The actual event was the execution in March 1915 of four randomly-selected corporals of the 136th Regiment of the French army. They were executed as examples (supposedly to encourage the other soldiers to be more courageous). The measure was taken following the failure of an attack against a hill near Souain in the Champagne region. In this novel, the experience of three soldiers is examined in relation to the unsuccessful attack and how they come to be chosen as the ‘examples’ to face a court martial for cowardice. The narrative style is peculiar: rather than there being a reliable narrating character to testify to what happened, there is instead a virtual narrator who imagines what the men facing the firing squad are feeling. The novel was adapted for the stage in 1935 and later adapted by Stanley Kubrick into an acclaimed film released in 1957.

The author, Humphrey Cobb (born 5 September 1899), whose parents were from Massachusetts, grew up in Tuscany. He was educated in England and the United States. In September 1916, having been expelled from high school, he went to Montreal and enlisted for service in the Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force (he claimed to be 18 but was actually a year younger). He served on the Western Front  from October 1917 in the same company as Charles Yale Harrison, author of Generals Die in Bed. After the war he returned to the United States and eventually pursued a career in advertising. His first novel (this one) appeared in 1935 and a second novel was published in 1938. From 1935 to 1940 he worked as a screenwriter and is best known for his 1937 screenplay San Quentin. He died in 1944.

The author describes the atmosphere among the men before they launched an attack:
“Langlois looked at the men around him. Some of them were condemned to be dead within the half hour. Perhaps he was one of them. The thought passed through his head, a strangely impersonal one, as if it had not been a thought of his at all, but some story he was reading. He noted the unusual self-possession of these men but he had seen it before and accepted it as granted. The thought kept returning: this one or this one or that one would actually, inevitably be dead in a few minutes. He tried, half-heartedly, to guess which.”

Frost in May

This largely autobiographical novel, published in 1933, is set in a convent school in the south of England in the years immediately preceding the First World War. The central character, Fernanda Grey, is the daughter of a zealous convert to Roman Catholicism. He sends her, aged 9, to the convent school at Lippington in expectation that she will be able to learn the Catholic way of life. For several years she receives recognition for exemplary behaviour and her faith grows stronger. Her literary pursuits, however, eventually lead to her forced removal from the school.

The author, Antonia White (née Eirene Botting, born 1 March 1899), grew up in London. She was educated at the Sacred Heart convent in Roehampton. She was expelled for writing what was considered an improper novel for a 15-year-old schoolgirl — it had in fact been intended as a gift for her father as she aimed to show the power of Catholicism to transform sinful lives. After an unsuccessful spell in another school, she began training in acting. When this did not lead to a career, she returned to writing, at first chiefly working as a copywriter in advertising. Her first published novel (this one) appeared in 1933; her second, however, was not published until 1950. She went on to write two further novels, a collection of short stories and two works of memoir.

In the convent community of nuns and pupils are several people from continental Europe. The central character, Nanda, discusses the prospect of war along with her aristocratic friend Léonie:
“If there were a war with Germany,” said Nanda suddenly, “you would be an enemy, wouldn't you, Léo?”
“I'm not sure,” mused Léonie. “It depends whether I went in with my German relations or my French ones. In the Franco-Prussian war I had a great-uncle on each side.”
“Your father's German, anyhow," persisted Clare.
“Hoch der Kaiser. Nationality is all rot, anyhow,” said Léonie.
“How can you say that?” flamed Rosario. “I would rather be dead than be anything but Spanish.”

The Incredible Adventures of Professor Branestawm

This collection of stories, published in 1933, is set in a fictional small English town called Pagwell. The central character, Professor Branestawm, is an enthusiastic inventor but there are many flaws in his genius. Many of the stories feature his housekeeper and his friend Colonel Dedshott (of the Catalpult Cavaliers). In the story “The Professor Invents a Machine”, the professor invents a time machine and travels back in time with Colonel Dedshott. They observe a battle and decide to join in: “the Professor opened his box and rained his deadly bombs on the scene below” and “by the time the machine touched the ground there was hardly a soldier or a revolutionist left.” The two men are lauded by the small revolutionary group that proves victorious in the battle but later, when Colonel Dedshott wants to review the troops, there aren't any troops: “They'd all been  blown to bits with the Professor’s bombs or catapulted with the Colonel’s catapult.”

The author, Norman Hunter (born 23 November 1899), grew up in southeast London. He left school to volunteer for war service and went to the Western Front with the London Irish Rifles. After the war, he began a career as a copywriter in the advertising sector. His second book in 1924 was a manual for advertising; his first, in 1923, was a book on conjuring. Four books of juvenile fiction were published between 1932 and 1938. From 1949 to 1970 he lived in South Africa and had no books published during that time. His return to England led to a return to writing and several further Professor Branestawm books were published, his last appearing in 1983.

In the story “Colonel Branestawm and Professor Dedshott”, the two men decide to go to a fancy dress ball as each other. When an emergency occurs, the professor, disguised as the colonel, is expected to take charge but doesn't know how to. At the end of the story, he comments:
“Thank ever so much more goodness I needn't be you any more and ride enormous great horses and order soldier sort of people about. How you do that I not only do not know but I have absolutely no desire to know. It makes me go all of a heap.”

Pnnd Hall's Progress

This novel, combining romance and tragedy, is largely set in rural Suffolk. The central character, Dick Brundish, born in 1890, son of an elderly farmer, returns from serving with the Royal Field Artillery in Italy (the involvement of British troops on this front is overlooked by many). He brings with him a young wife, called Teresa, that he's met while recovering from injury in Faenza, Emilia-Romagna. The two of them start a family and Dick works to follow in his father's footsteps as the principle farmer of the local community. The agricultural economy, however, is precarious and Dick’s life slowly descends into debt and drunkenness.

The author, Harold Webber Freeman (born 28 March 1899), known as Jack, was born in Ilford, Essex. During his time as a student in Oxford, he went to the Western Front as a second lieutenant in the Somerset Light Infantry. On his return, he completed a classics degree. After a few years of teaching in the Midlands, he left for the continent to concentrate on a literary career. His first novel, written while staying in Italy, was published in 1928 and was followed by several other novels set in rural Suffolk. Although not of farming stock, his father had in retirement run a small poultry farm in Suffolk. He married his German wife in 1940 and they settled in rural Suffolk. He also wrote several books of travelogue.

The central character, Dick Brundish, is wounded a week before the Armistice, he being the only man wounded when a stray Austrian shell fell upon his battery.  While recovering in a convalescent camp, he reflects on his experience in Italy:
“France at least bore some resemblance to his native Suffolk, which, in the first instance, he had enlisted to defend, but here in Italy he felt he was fighting for a foreign country and saw dimly at last that the war was really nothing more than a machine to which he had become enslaved, doing his duty efficiently because there was nothing else to be done.”
Prior to serving in Italy, he had been on the Western Front. While on leave, he tells a friend:
“What do we want with the bloody war? Here have I been a-killing Jerries for close on three years, with a lot of damned officers and sergeant-majors a-telling me to do this and that, and the end no nearer yet! And all them years I might ha' been on the farm a-doing a man's work. We know I laugh and say I'm having a good time. Blast that and to hell with the bloody war, I say!"

State Fair

This novel, published in 1932, is set in pre-Depression Iowa and was the basis for a successful Rodgers & Hammerstein musical. As the title suggests, the main action takes place at the state fair in Des Moines. The Frake family make an overnight journey from rural Iowa to Des Moines to attend the fair, bringing a prize boar for competition. Their children, Margy and Wayne, have each had romantic rows before they leave for the fair and they both find love at the fair. The novel emphasises the long-term incompatibility of the two cultures that can happily embrace for the duration of the fair but are ultimately too far apart. A more recent Des Moines writer, Bill Bryson, wrote in The Lost Continent about this same dichotomy: “When I was growing up I used to think that the best thing about coming from Des Moines was that it meant you didn't come from anywhere else in Iowa... During the annual state high school basketball tournament, when the hayseeds from out in the state would flood into the city for a week, we used to accost them downtown and snidely offer to show them how to ride an escalator or negotiate a revolving door. This wasn't always so far from reality.”

 The author, Phil Stong (born 27 January 1899), grew up in rural Iowa. He studied at Drake University in Des Moines and at Columbia University in New York City.  In 1924 and 1925 he worked as a reporter for The Des Moines Register before marrying and moving to New York. His first literary success came in 1932 with the publication of this novel. In the following year,  his second novel, Stranger's Return, was also well received (like State Fair, it was also successfully adapted for the screen). His attempt in 1935 to move away from his Iowan-themed fiction with Week-End, set in high-class Connecticut, was a failure and he returned to his successful regional focus in numerous further novels as well as children's books (including the award-winning Honk, the Moose in 1935), a biography and an autobiography.

The author sums up the experience of the Frake family of the momentous fair:
“With surprise Abel Frake realised that he was glad... that he was going home. He was gorged with excitement and the triumphs of that strange place, reality, as he had made it for himself, pleased and satisfied him. The Frakes had stepped for a moment into a fantasy; now, unchanged, they were returning to that five hundred acres where only birth and death — not even marriage — had been the only changes for four generations.”

Guardian Angel and Other Stories

This outstanding selection of short stories, published in 1984, is taken from two books published during the author's life (Guardian Angel and other stories, published in 1932, and Nellie Bloom and other stories, published in 1929). In the story Marriage Eve, the central character seeks her father’s approval for her imminent marriage. He's matter of fact about her plans for the future:
“It's a good thing to have a family — we live for that — we have to keep the world going — happiness doesn't count here in America — we have a bigger ideal than that — the next generation does count and nothing else matters.” All his talk of the importance of the next generation is contradicted by his glorification of Woodrow Wilson:
“If you want a worthwhile book I've got one for you. Wilson’s speeches all collected in one volume.”
In the story Death of Mrs Vanderwood, the title character is awaiting her death in the care of her servant girl Mady. Mady complains on the telephone to her friend Katie about Mrs Vanderwood:
“Why, she's going crazy. Honest, I think she is. You'd think she'd want her mind on something different than dying, wouldn't you? Say, she's got me wild. Talks about it all the time.”

The author, Margery Latimer (born 6 February 1899), grew up in Portage, Wisconsin. As a teenaged girl she was contributing short stories to her local newspaper. These brought her to the attention of local author Zona Gale (later a Pulitzer Prize winner). In 1918 she went to Wooster College in Ohio but withdrew after one semester. The following year she entered the University of Wisconsin and remained there until 1921. She then moved to New York where she quickly started work on her first novel. With financial support from Zona Gale, she returned to the University of Wisconsin. By 1923, she had finished her novel and decided to concentrate on writing rather than study. Her first published novel, however, did not appear until 1928. A further novel was published in 1930 as well as two collections of short stories prior to her death in Chicago in 1932 after giving birth of her first child. A contemporary reviewer of her short stories compared her to Katherine Mansfield and D.H. Lawrence.

The central character in the story Death of Mrs Vanderwood frantically sifts through memories of life and thoughts of death while she is dying. She looks in vain for certainty and concludes:
“I've fallen apart. I haven't any shepherd to gather me together”. Feeling a sense of disintegration, she pleads to Mady “I can't remember my life — I want it saved — all of it — please...”

Eternity in an Hour

This novel, published in 1932, has the subtitle A study in childhood and is largely autobiographical. With his father an army officer, Frank, the central character, had an interest in the military from an early age — “Father was ‘the major’... His military training reflected itself in all his habits: he was punctual, precise, methodical.” The final chapter describes the outbreak of war and his brother’s exultant response to it: “What I've been waiting for! I knew it would come and now it has!” For Frank, however, there was only the disappointment of being too young to serve:
“If only he could join too! In four years’ time he'd be 18 — but the war would be over and done with long before then. Perhaps, though it wouldn't?”

The author, Vernon Knowles (born 17 April 1899), grew up in Adelaide, South Australia. His English father,  a major in the army, died in 1911. Both of his brothers served in the First World War: Harold with the 44th Battalion and Lyndon in the 3rd Battalion. He attended the University of Western Australia but did not graduate. His first book of poetry was published in 1917. He moved to London in 1921 and his first short stories and his first novel appeared in 1926. He returned home to Adelaide in 1938 and, claiming to be destitute, sought a grant from the Commonwealth Literary Fund. With this funding, he went back to London but did not prosper. Towards the end of his life he received a pension from the Royal Literature Society and he died in 1968 in conditions of miserable squalor.


From his father the central character he had learnt a military sense of patriotism: in response to a question how he would show his love for his country, he knew to say “By being ready to die for it” — “This love was expected of him. The necessity of his having it had been drilled into him assiduously and he had naturally accepted the duty without question.”
 By the time the First World War had started, the central character had suffered two major bereavements: his father had a stroke and died within a few days; his friend Edgar was killed by a shark. His emotional response was one of self-pity:
“There's no more comfort left in the world [he thought]... He felt afraid, dreadfully afraid...”

Fabian: the story of a moralist

This novel, published in 1931, is set in Berlin at a time when Nazi violence is already evident on the streets. The central character, Jakob Fabian, works in advertising for a daily newspaper. The novel traces the changing outlook of Fabian and his close friends Stephan Labude, a postgraduate literature student, and Cornelia Battenberg, an aspiring actor. Each of the three has personal ambitions but for each of them success is dependent on decisions made by others. When Fabian, having been made redundant, abandons the city, and returns to his childhood home, he aspires to retreat to the Hartz Mountains to “find himself again”. His outlook is that “by the time he came back, the world would have taken a step forward or maybe two steps back. Whichever way it went, no situation could be worse than the present.”

The author, Erich Kästner (born 23 February 1899), grew up in Dresden. In 1917 he was conscripted into the army and he served in a heavy artillery company. His experience of war, even though he did not see action, shaped his antimilitarist views and also caused an enduring heart condition (in an autobiographical reference, he refers to Fabian being physically active “within the limits imposed by his weak heart”). The damage was believed to have been done by the gruelling regime of the company training sergeant; he wrote about his ill-treatment in the acerbic poem Sergeant Waurich, referring to him as “an animal”. After the war, he completed his secondary education and then studied at the University of Leipzig, receiving a doctorate in literature in 1925. He moved to Berlin in 1927 His first book of poetry was published in 1928 and later in the same year his children's book Emil and the Detectives was an instant success and led to numerous further books for children. Though condemned by the Nazi regime, he refused to go into exile, considering it important to stay so as to chronicle what was happening. He fled Berlin for Austria in early 1945 and settled in München after the war. There he worked in journalism and wrote further children's books as well as political satire. His 1957 autobiography won several prestigious awards.

The author describes the impact of the First World War on Fabian (again Kästner is writing autobiographically) and on a generation of young men:
“Damn the war! Of course to have escaped with a weak heart was mere child’s play but the souvenir was enough for Fabian. They said there were isolated buildings, scattered about the provinces, still full of mutilated soldiers. Men without limbs, men with ghastly faces, without noses, without mouths. Nurses whom nothing could scare poured food into these disfigured creatures, poured it through thin glass tubes, speared into scarred and suppurating holes where once there had been a mouth. A mouth that could laugh and speak and cry aloud.”

The Story of Babar

This children's story, published in 1931, is a development of a spontaneous story told by the author's wife to their young children. The central character, Babar, is a young elephant whose mother is shot dead by “a cruel hunter”. He runs for his life and eventually reaches a colonial town (looking so French that it could be France itself — there are no African people shown on the streets, only Europeans). There he's adopted by a wealthy old lady who “loved making others happy”.

The author, Jean de Brunhoff (born 9 December 1899), was born in Paris. On leaving school, he joined the army and began active service on the Western Front in the last weeks of the First World War. After the war he trained in art at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. His first book (this one), with his own colourful illustrations, appeared in 1931 and was an instant success. Six more Babar books followed before the author's premature death from tuberculosis in October 1937. His son, Laurent, wrote and illustrate Babar stories after his father’s death, staying faithful to the style of the original.

It's significant that the plot of this children's story first told in the 1920s is about the violent death of a family member of a young child. There were thousands of French children growing up without a father and this kind of story would help to encourage them to see beyond their loss and deprivation. The author brings the Babar character from a situation of terror to a situation in which he feels loved and protected. Even then, however, he “was not altogether happy” and “when he thought of his dear mother, he used to cry”.

Little Caesar

This gangster novel, published in 1929, was the forerunner of several iconic screenplays of the 1930s, including Scarface, co-written by this author. Set in Chicago, the obvious model for this gangster novel was Al Capone. The central character, Cesare Bandello (known as Rico), deposes the boss of his Italian crime gang and quickly outmanoeuvres rival gangs and tries to keep Flaherty, the Irish police sergeant, at bay. When, however, one of his gang members is arrested and turns state evidence against him, he's forced to abandon the city and lose his status in an attempt to preserve his freedom and his life.

The author, William Riley Burnett (born 25 November 1899), was born in Springfield, Ohio. He dropped out of Ohio State University after his first semester and then worked in various unexciting jobs. He moved to Chicago in the late 1920s and while working as a hotel clerk, he came to know a minor gangster and through him was introduced to the city's underworld. This led to him writing his first novel (this one), which was published in 1929. The following year he won the prestigious O. Henry Award for his 1929 short story Dressing-Up. A film version of Little Caesar, quickly followed and in 1930, Burnett moved to Hollywood to work as a screenwriter. He became one of the highest paid screenwriters there and was successful in getting 17 of his screenplays made into films, two of which were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Screenplay. In addition he wrote numerous gangster novels and Westerns. In 1980 he was awarded the Edgar Award for lifetime achievement (Grand Master) in recognition of his role as originator of the subgenre of gangster fiction.

Like many a superstitious soldier, the central character, Rico, muses about the ups and downs of life:
“You never know. When you're looking for things to go right they never do. When you're looking for trouble, why, things are O.K.”
Often his first response to confrontation or danger is to reach for his gun. Ultimately, its his shooting of a policeman that is his downfall. Trapped in a blind alley in the town of his exile, Rico's frantic as he faces his pursuer, a big man in a derby hat:
“He wanted to live. For the first time in his life he addressed a vague power which he felt to be stronger than himself,
‘Give me a break! Give me a break!’ he implored.”

While the Patient Slept

Similar in many ways to Zenith Jones's Siren in the Night, this detective novel, published in 1930, is set in a mansion outside Boston, Massachusetts. The central character, Sarah Keate, has been summoned to the house to nurse the elderly patriarch, Adolph Federie, unconscious after a stroke. Soon after her arrival, one of the Federie family is murdered and her acquaintance from the local police force, Lance O'Leary, is called in to investigate. Combining her amateur investigative curiosity and his professional detective prowess, they set about finding out who is the murderer.

The author, Mignon Eberhart (née Good, born 6 July 1899), grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska. She was a voracious reader from an early age and was writing stories by the age of ten. She attended Nebraska Wesleyan University for three years but did not graduate. She began an apprenticeship at the city library in Lincoln. She got married in 1923 and began her career as a writer three days after the wedding. Her first novella appeared in 1925 and her first novel, The Patient in Room 18, featuring both Keate and O'Leary, was published in 1929. The follow-up (this novel) won the Scotland Yard Prize in 1930. Jay Fultz in his introduction to the 1995 reissue of While the Patient Slept, sets Eberhart's popularity in context: “American readers, disillusioned by the First World War and de-escalating from the twenties, sought escape in tantalizing puzzles, chilling conundrums, entertainments that made horror manageable”. She appeared on the scene slightly before Agatha Christie; by 1940 Eberhart was one of the most successful women mystery writers in the world, perhaps only overshadowed by Christie and Mary Roberts Rinehart, both of whom were older than her. She went on to write 57 novels, the last of which appeared in 1989. She was awarded a lifetime achievement award in 1994 at the Agatha Awards.

Although the appeal of detective fiction is largely escapist, Eberhart nonetheless poses uncomfortable questions about the violent tendencies of people in our very midst. Sarah Keate, the narrator,  comments:
“Our furtive looks at each other, the ugly speculation that lay back of very pair of meeting eyes, our haggard faces... all gave witness to the fear we had of each other. One does not as a rule connect crime... with one's nearest associates — with the people who live in the same house, eat at the same table, share the same daily routine with one's self. And I may as well state here and now that there is nothing more aptly calculated to make the stoutest hearted shake in his boots!”

A Farewell to Arms

This semi-autobiographical novel, published in 1929, is largely set in northern Italy during the First World War. The central character, Frederic Henry, an American student of architecture, is serving as a volunteer paramedic serving with an Italian military ambulance corps on the Isonzo Front, where Italy fought Austria-Hungary across the mountainous terrain of the Julian Alps. While receiving treatment at the American hospital in Milan, he falls in love with Catherine, an English nurse. When he recovers, his return to the front coincides with a chaotic retreat in which Italian military police execute lone soldiers amidst paranoia about enemy infiltration. Fleeing from this mayhem, he returns to Milan and flees to Switzerland with Catherine.

The author, Ernest Hemingway (born 21 July 1899), grew up in Chicago. Active in school journalism, on leaving school, he worked as a junior reporter. Unfit for the United States Army due to poor eyesight, he enlisted in the Red Cross in December 1917 and went on France in April 1918. Like the central character of this novel, he served, from June, as a volunteer with an Italian ambulance corps on the Isonzo Front . He was seriously wounded by a mortar shell on 8 July and recuperated at the American Red Cross hospital in Milan. He returned home in January 1919 and returned to journalism, firstly as a freelance correspondent for the Toronto Star and then as an associate editor of a Chicago periodical. In late 1921, newly married, he went to Europe to work as  a foreign correspondent of the Toronto Star and was based in Paris where he met influential writers and artists in the circle of Gertrude Stein. His first publication (a collection of short stories and poems) appeared in 1923. A second collection was published in 1925 and his first novel appeared in 1926. Perhaps his most famous novel, The Old Man and the Sea, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1953. In the following year Hemingway received the Nobel Prize for Literature “for his mastery of the art of narrative... and for the influence that he has exerted on contemporary style”.

The narrator and central character describes the shell attack in which he is wounded in a graphic way:
“...there was a flash, as when a blast-furnace door is swung open, and a roar that started white and went red and on and in a rushing wind. I tried to breathe but my breath would not come and I felt myself rush bodily out of myself and out and out and out and all the time bodily in the wind. I went out swiftly, all of myself, and I knew I was dead and that it had all been a mistake to think you just died. Then I floated, and instead of going on I felt myself slide back. I breathed and I was back. The ground was torn up and in front of my head there was a splintered beam of wood. In the jolt of my head I heard somebody crying. I thought somebody was screaming. I tried to move but I could not move. I heard the machine-guns and rifles firing across the river and all along the river.”

The Last September

This novel, published in 1929, deals with the aftermath of the First World War in the south of Ireland. Set in the fictionalised country seat of Danielstown, Co. Cork, it deals with the local military and paramilitary activity of the War of Independence. The main protagonist, Lois Farquar, the 18-year-old orphaned niece of the owner of Danielstown, falls in love with Gerald Lesworth, an English army officer stationed at a nearby garrison. The title suggests the inevitable doom of the family home — “At Danielstown, half-way up the avenue under the beeches, the thin iron gate twanged as the last unlit car slid out with the executioners bland from accomplished duty... Above the steps, the door stood open hospitably upon a furnace." — and the predictable violent termination of the impending marriage between Lois and Gerald.

The author, Elizabeth Bowen (born 7 June 1899), spent her early childhood in her native Dublin and in England. She spent her summers on the family estate of Bowen’s Court in north Co. Cork. Her first book to be published, a collection of short stories, appeared in 1923. A second collection came out in 1926; a year later her first novel was published. Although she inherited Bowen’s Court in 1930, she continued to reside in England until 1952, when her husband retired and they moved to Ireland. She wrote ten novels as well as numerous short stories and works of non-fiction. She sold the family home in 1960 and returned to England, living in southern Kent from 1965. Her last novel, Eva Trout, was the winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction in 1969.

The owner of Danielstown, Sir Richard Naylor, comments on the significant relationship between the First World War and the War of Independence:
“This country is altogether too full of soldiers, with nothing to do but dance and poke old women out of their beds to look for guns. It's unsettling the people, naturally. The fact is the army's got into the habit of fighting and doesn't know what else to do with itself...”
Early in the novel he's dismissive of the suggestion that the area is turning into a war zone. When asked  whether he's sure they “will not be shot at if [they] sit out late on the steps”, he jokingly replies, “We never have yet, not even with soldiers here and Lois dancing with officers up and down the avenue” and adds, sarcastically, “Do you think maybe we ought to put sandbags behind the shutters when we shut up at nights?”