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?”

Hilltop in the Rain

This semi-autobiographical novel, published in 1928, is set in a fictionalised version of Birmingham, Alabama. Its central character, Morgan Henley, is a novelist working as an English literature lecturer at the local city college in an effort to support his young family. Though not as evocative of academic departmental life as Stegner’s Crossing to Safety or Williams’s Stoner, it remains an impressive depiction of the way in which the life of a literature lecturer suppresses the creativity of a talented writer and passionate thinker. On the entry into the war by the United States, Henley was “restless and sad at heart”, envying his friends who had the opportunity to serve. When he himself enlists, he's sent to Boston and is well trained in the use of the Lewis machine gun (“the tat-tat-tat of the gun was a thrilling music to him”). Before his training has been completed, however, the armistice is signed and he returns to his humdrum duties in the college.

The author, James Saxon Childers (born 19 April 1899), grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. He studied at Oberlin College, Ohio, interrupting his studies to serve in the war as a navy pilot. He graduated in 1920 and subsequently completed a primary and secondary degree as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. From 1925 to 1942, he was a member of the English department of Birmingham-Southern College and this experience forms the basis of this novel. His debut novel appeared in 1927 and was similarly semi-autobiographical, telling the story of a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. Perhaps his most important novel appeared in 1936; with the unimaginative title, A Novel about a White Man and a Black Man in the Deep South, it was a courageous challenge to institutionalised racism. Later in life, when working as editor of the Atlanta Journal, his progressive views on race relations cost him his job.

The central character, Morgan Henley, has a yearning to join the war effort:
“In reality he was no different from any other healthy, normal, high-spirited young fellow of 27, and in the late spring of 1918, the uniforms upon the streets of Iron City, the bands, the flags, the recruiting posters, the flaring headlines of the newspapers, combined to goad his spirit to a restlessness which caused a longing that was painful. All his friends, except those who were physically unfit or, like himself, were married and fathers, were away in training camps or in France.”

The Bitter End

This semi-autobiographical novel, published in 1928, is one of England's finest fictional accounts of an individual soldier's experience of the First World War. The central character, Donald Foster, son of a Liverpool merchant, in October 1914 volunteers for the army at the age of 16 during the half-term vacation from school; like many young men, including the author, he declared a false age in his attestation papers in order to serve. Wounded in August 1916, he's evacuated to a convalescent hospital near Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where he quickly falls in love with Celia, the daughter of the owner of the stately home in which the hospital is housed. When his physical recovery is complete, Donald returns to Flanders in September 1917; meanwhile his sister Millicent is now serving at Montreuil with the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps alongside Celia. At “the bitter end” in November 1918, Donald asks a friend, “What made you join the army?”. The response isn't patriotic or proud but instead has a sense of disillusionment: “I don't know. I can't remember.” Donald has the final word: “Neither can I!”

The author, John Brophy (born 6 December 1899), grew up in Liverpool. He was not yet 15 years old when he enlisted in the army in November 1914. He served with the Liverpool Regiment on the Western Front for the duration of the war. He studied at the University of Liverpool and after graduating in 1922, trained as a teacher. His first novel (this one) was published in 1928. Building on its success, in 1929 he published two further novels, as well as a war-themed anthology. In 1930 he edited, with Eric Partridge, Songs and Slang of the British Soldier, 1914–1918. This formed the basis for Charles Chilton's iconic play, Oh, What a Lovely War! He continued to write prolifically during the 1930s, including The Five Years, a personal history of the war in 1936. Immortal Sergeant, his 1942 novel of the Second World War, is regarded by many to be his finest work and was made into a film. Many further novels, short stories and works of non-fiction appeared in the next two decades. His only child, Brigid, was also a successful writer.

When the wounded central character is evacuated from the Western Front in August 1916, the author looks back on the carnage experienced by his unit of the army in the space of less than two years:
“Frank was dead! Sergeant Brax was dead. Corporal Jarvis had been killed just before Donald was wounded. ’09 Wharton was dead. His twin brother had been hit on 1 July. Teddy Scott had gone back wounded and Sergeant Major Budden. Captain Wrekin was dead too. David Bryant and Jack Mason were left. No. 3, indeed all the company, was broken, patched with new faces! It would never be A Company again, as he and 200 other good fellows had known it. He perceived now that the rough, boisterous existence of the Company had had a delicate loveliness of its own. Only the memories of it were left now but not war itself could sear those memories out of the sundered friendly souls that lingered on in trenches or lay sick in hospitals or cold and lonely in their unkempt graves.”