A Broken World

A lieutenant writes of digging through bodies that have the consistency of Camembert cheese; a mother sends flower seeds to her son at the Front, hoping that one day someone may see them grow; a nurse tends a man back to health knowing he will be court-martialled and shot as soon as he is fit. In this extraordinarily powerful and diverse selection of diaries, letters and memories, the testament from ordinary people whose lives were transformed are set alongside extracts from names that have become synonymous with the war, such as Siegfried Sassoon and T.E. Lawrence. A Broken World is an original collection of personal and defining moments that offer an unprecedented insight into the Great War as it was experienced and as it was remembered.

Sebastian Faulks’s books include On Green Dolphin Street, Charlotte Gray, Devil May Care, Jeeves and the Wedding Bells, and Birdsong, which has sold more than three million copies. Hope Wolf is a Research Fellow in English at Girton College, the University of Cambridge. She holds a PhD from King’s College London, and her doctoral research focused on archives at the Imperial War Museum.