This book is a complete six-volume history of the First World War, written during the war by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Doyle interviewed army generals, read their papers and diaries, and he also talked to numerous soldiers in order to get a full picture. He describes all the main battles of the British Army, offering very detailed accounts of battles, where great feats of bravery and courage are given. Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) was a British writer best known for his detective fiction featuring the character Sherlock Holmes. The Sherlock Holmes stories are generally considered milestones in the field of crime fiction. Doyle is also known for writing the fictional adventures of Professor Challenger and for propagating the mystery of the Mary Celeste. He was a prolific writer whose other works include fantasy and science fiction stories, plays, romances, poetry, non-fiction and historical novels.

In "The Last Shot," which appeared only a few months before the Great War began, drawing from my experience in many wars, I attempted to describe the character of a conflict between two great European land-powers, such as France and Germany. "You were wrong in some ways," a friend writes to me, "but in other ways it is almost as if you had written a play and they were following your script and stage business." Wrong as to the duration of the struggle and its bitterness; right about the part which artillery would play; right in suggesting the stalemate of intrenchments when vast masses of troops occupied the length of a frontier. Had the Germans not gone through Belgium and attacked on the shorter line of the Franco-German boundary, the parallel of fact with that of prediction would have been more complete. As for the ideal of "The Last Shot," we must await the outcome to see how far it shall be fulfilled by a lasting peace. Then my friend asks, "How does it make you feel?" Not as a prophet; only as an eager observer, who finds that imagination pales beside reality. If sometimes an incident seemed a page out of my novel, I was reminded how much better I might have done that page from life; and from life I am writing now. I have seen too much of the war and yet not enough to assume the pose of a military expert; which is easy when seated in a chair at home before maps and news despatches, but becomes fantastic after one has livedvi at the front. One waits on more information before he forms conclusions about campaigns. He is certain only that the Marne was a decisive battle for civilisation; that if England had not gone into the war the Germanic Powers would have won in three months. No words can exaggerate the heroism and sacrifice of the French or the importance of the part which the British have played, which we shall not realise till the war is over.

“The memoir of . . . an American pilot flying with the famous French Flying Corps’ American Layfayette Escadrille and provides a unique personal insight.”—Firetrench In 1915 James Roger McConnell enlisted as a US volunteer in the French Flying Corps. He was part of a remarkable band of American volunteers which were formed into the famous Lafayette Escadrille, which was then based at Verdun. This book brings his personal account of the war, Flying for France, to a new generation of readers. His memoirs produce an amazing insight into the early aerial battles and trace the evolution of aerial warfare as the rickety aircraft of 1915 rapidly evolved into the purpose-built fighters of 1917. Casualties among the American Escadrille were very high and McConnell’s own luck finally ran out when he was ambushed by two German fighters and was killed in action in March 1917. His gripping and detailed memoir of the war is his lasting memorial; his honest account of the everyday life of a pilot in the Great War is matched only by Sagittarius Rising. However, his dramatic description of the battlefield of Verdun viewed from above is one of the classic descriptions of any wartime memoir and is unmatched by any other Great War writer. “Resurrects an important part of the first-person literature of the Lafayette Escadrille. A long-lost gem.”—Over the Front “The memoir and letters give a surprising amount of detail about the pilot’s life and tactics employed. McConnell’s story is certainly an interesting one and this is a short and easily digestible introduction to the life of a First World War pilot.”—WW1 Geek

Dark Back of Time is a compelling story of the way in which reality blurs into fiction by Javier Marías, whose highly-anticipated new novel The Infatuations is published in 2013. It is translated by Esther Allen in Penguin Modern Classics. 'We lose everything because everything remains except us', says the mysterious narrator of this extraordinary novel, which meditates on the transience, chance and fragility of life. As a man called Javier Marías recalls the strange events and people that shaped his past, including ghostly literary figures, a pilot, an adventurer, a brother who died as a child and the king of an island in the Caribbean, we begin to question the nature of time, memory and reality itself. Here the writer is both a keeper of memories and a purveyor of illusions, destined to be lost in the dark back of time. Javier Marías was born in Madrid in 1951. He has published ten novels, two collections of short stories and several volumes of essays. His work has been translated into thirty-two languages and won a dazzling array of international literary awards, including the prestigious Dublin IMPAC award for A Heart So White. He is also a highly practised translator into Spanish of English authors, including Joseph Conrad, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Thomas Browne and Laurence Sterne. 'I was enthralled by his strange mix of made-up memories, lost experiences and real-life fantasies' Marina Warner, Guardian 'He uses language like an anatomist uses a scalpel to lay bare the innermost secrets of that strangest of species, the human being' W. G. Sebald, author of Austerlitz

Ottawa Book Award 2015 — Shortlisted Between 1918 and 1921 a great storm blew through Canada and raised the expectations of a new world in which all things would be possible.| The years after World War I were among the most tumultuous in Canadian history: a period of unremitting change, drama, and conflict. They were, in the words of Stephen Leacock, “a time such as there never was before.” The war had been a great crusade, promising a world made new. But it had cost Canada sixty thousand dead and many more wounded, and it had widened the many fault lines in a young, diverse country. In a nation struggling to define itself and its place in the world, labour, farmers, businessmen, churches, social reformers, and minorities had extravagant hopes, irrational fears, and contradictory demands. What had this sacrifice achieved? Whose hopes would be realized and whose dreams would end in disillusionment? Which changes would prove permanent and which would be transitory? A Time Such As There Never Was Before describes how this exciting period laid the foundation of the Canada we know today.

Once known for peacekeeping, Canada is becoming a militarized nation whose apostles—-the New Warriors-—are fighting to shift public opinion. New Warrior zealots seek to transform postwar Canada’s central myth-symbols. Peaceable kingdom. Just society. Multicultural tolerance. Reasoned public debate. Their replacements? A warrior nation. Authoritarian leadership. Permanent political polarization. The tales cast a vivid light on a story that is crucial to Canada’s future; yet they are also compelling history. Swashbuckling marauder William Stairs, the Royal Military College graduate who helped make the Congo safe for European pillage. Vimy Ridge veteran and Second World War general Tommy Burns, leader of the UN’s first big peacekeeping operation, a soldier who would come to call imperialism the monster of the age. Governor General John Buchan, a concentration camp developer and race theorist who is exalted in the Harper government’s new Citizenship Guide. And that uniquely Canadian paradox, Lester Pearson. Warrior Nation is an essential read for those concerned by the relentless effort to conscript Canadian history.

Reproduction of the original: Some Reminiscences by Joseph A. Altsheler

`We Can Take It!' shows that the British remember the war in a peculiar way, thanks to a mix of particular images and evidence. Our memory has been shaped by material which is completely removed from historical reality. These images (including complete inventions) have combined to make a new history. The vision is mostly cosy and suits the way in which the Britons conceive of themselves: dogged, good humoured, occasionally bumbling, unified and enjoying diversity. In fact Britons load their memory towards the early part of the war (Dunkirk, Blitz, Battle of Britain) rather than when we were successful in the air or against Italy and Germany with invasions. This suits our love of being the underdog, fighting against the odds, and being in a crisis. Conversely, the periods of the war during which Britain was in the ascendant are, perversely, far more hazy in the public memory.