Love Letters of the Great War

[Love Letters of the Great War] gathers together the most moving, intimate and fascinating correspondence to and from soldiers fighting in the First World War * The Telegraph * Heartbreaking letters from the hell of the trenches … a moving collection * Daily Mail * The passions of war are universal: these letters reflect the constancy of gallantry, intimacy and grief – Iain Finlayson * The Times * Touching and fascinating first-hand accounts … a brilliant collection, and a must-read for both young and old * The Press and Journal * Love Letters of the Great War, sensitively edited by Mandy Kirkby and with an insightful foreword by Helen Dunmore, is more than a touching anthology. It shows that letters gave men the chance to reflect on their transformation into soldiers, allowed absent husbands and fathers to participate in family life, formed a point of physical contact between separated lovers … and, in spite of the censors, provided a forum for sexual fantasy – Kate McLoughlin * TLS * Emotive and poignant * The Sunday Post *

Mandy Kirkby is an editor and author of The Language of Flowers: A Miscellany.

Helen Dunmore is an acclaimed bestselling author, poet, children’s novelist and short-story writer. Among her novels are Zennor in Darkness, which won the McKitterick Prize; A Spell of Winter, which won the inaugural Orange Prize; The Siege, which was shortlisted for the Whitbread Book Award for Best Novel and for the Orange Prize; The Betrayal, which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Orwell Prize; Mourning Ruby; House of Orphans; and Counting the Stars. Her 2014 novel The Lie is set during and just after the First World War.