An anthology of letters from writers to the Telegraph covering the lead up to and the duration of the entire First World War. For the millions at home watching the horrors of the First World War unfold, there were few means by which they could express their anxiety, show their pride for the Tommies on the front, or vent their frustration at the way the war was being fought. So, many did what the British do best – they wrote letters and, in so doing, tried to understand the events over which they had no control. And many of these were addressed to the Editor of the Letters pages at the Daily Telegraph, through whom they came to have a voice. Collected together for the first time, from the lead up to war through to the declaration of peace, in 1918, are the voices of a slice of Britain whose stories tell of a war viewed from relative safety, but scarred by tragedy, guilt and grief. Together these letters reveal a new portrait of a nation at war – one penned by readers of the Daily Telegraph themselves. As they dealt with the anguish and fear for loved ones while ‘doing their bit’ far from the front line, they came together in the Letters Pages and tried to come to terms with a war that would alter the courses of their lives forever.

From the private papers of Winston Churchill to the tender notes of an unknown Tommy in the trenches, Love Letters of the Great War brings together some of the most romantic correspondence ever written. Many of the letters collected here are eloquent declarations of love and longing; others contain wrenching accounts of fear, jealousy and betrayal; and a number share sweet dreams of home. But in all the correspondence – whether from British, American, French, German, Russian, Australian and Canadian troops in the height of battle, or from the heartbroken wives and sweethearts left behind – there lies a truly human portrait of love and war. A century on from the First World War, these letters offer an intimate glimpse into the hearts of men and women separated by conflict, and show how love can transcend even the bleakest and most devastating of realities. Edited and introduced by Mandy Kirkby, with a foreword from Orange Prize-winner Helen Dunmore.

An anthology of letters from writers to the Telegraph covering the lead up to and the duration of the entire First World War. For the millions at home watching the horrors of the First World War unfold, there were few means by which they could express their anxiety, show their pride for the Tommies on the front, or vent their frustration at the way the war was being fought. So, many did what the British do best - they wrote letters and, in so doing, tried to understand the events over which they had no control. And many of these were addressed to the Editor of the Letters pages at the Daily Telegraph, through whom they came to have a voice. Collected together for the first time, from the lead up to war through to the declaration of peace, in 1918, are the voices of a slice of Britain whose stories tell of a war viewed from relative safety, but scarred by tragedy, guilt and grief. Together these letters reveal a new portrait of a nation at war - one penned by readers of the Daily Telegraph themselves. As they dealt with the anguish and fear for loved ones while 'doing their bit' far from the front line, they came together in the Letters Pages and tried to come to terms with a war that would alter the courses of their lives forever.

New volume of the best-selling review of the year made up of the wry and astute observations of the unpublished Telegraph letter writers.

An WWI archive of Great Britain’s Daily Telegraph news coverage reveals how the press influenced public perception of the Great War. One hundred years on, the First World War has not lost its power to clutch at the heart. But how much do we really know about the war that would shape the twentieth century? And, all the more poignantly, how much did people know at the time? Today, someone fires a shot on the other side of the world and we read about it online a few seconds later. In 1914, with storm clouds gathering over Europe, wireless telephony was in its infancy. So newspapers such as the Daily Telegraph were, for the British public, their only access to official news about the progress of the war. These reports, many of them eye-witness dispatches, written by correspondents of the Daily Telegraph, bring the WWI to life in an intriguing new way. At times, the effect is terrifying, as accounts of the Somme, Flanders and Gallipoli depict brave and glorious victories, and the distinction between truth and propaganda becomes alarmingly blurred. Some exude a sense of dramatic irony that is almost excruciating, as one catches glimpses of how little the ordinary British people were told during the war of the havoc that was being wrought in their name. Poignant, passionate and shot-through with moments of bleak humour, The Telegraph Book of the First World War is a full account of the war by some of the country’s most brilliant and colourful correspondents, whose reportage shaped the way that the war would be understood for generations to come.

The first English translation of writings that capture the lives and thoughts of German soldiers fighting in the trenches and on the battlefields of WWI. German Soldiers in the Great War is a vivid selection of firsthand accounts and other wartime documents that shed new light on the experiences of German frontline soldiers during the First World War. It reveals in authentic detail the perceptions and emotions of ordinary soldiers that have been covered up by the smokescreen of official military propaganda about “heroism” and “patriotic sacrifice.” In this essential collection of wartime correspondence, editors Benjamin Ziemann and Bernd Ulrich have gathered more than two hundred mostly archival documents, including letters, military dispatches and orders, extracts from diaries, newspaper articles and booklets, medical reports and photographs. This fascinating primary source material provides the first comprehensive insight into the German frontline experiences of the Great War, available in English for the first time in a translation by Christine Brocks.

Readers of the 'brilliant Telegraph Letters page', as Ian Hislop recently lauded it, will be fondly aware of the eclectic combination of learned wisdom, wistful nostalgia and robust good sense that characterise its correspondence. But what of the 95 per cent of the paper's huge postbag which never sees the light of day? Some of the best letters inevitably arrive too late for the 24/7 news cycle, or don't quite fit with the rest of the day's selection. Others are just a little too whimsical, or indeed too risque, to publish in a serious newspaper. And more than a few are completely and utterly (and wonderfully) mad, such as the missives you'll find within these pages from someone who signs himself merely as "M", and believes himself to be the head of MI6. Now, the Telegraph gives the authors of these unpublished letters the stage at last. Baffled, furious, defiant, mischievous, they inveigh and speculate on every subject under the sun, from the rubbish on television these days to the venality of our MPs, from Kate Winslet's decolletage to this country's unhealthy obsession with marmalade. All those Telegraph readers who wondered if anyone else had noticed that the lunatics had finally taken over the asylum and sat down to write to their favourite newspaper to test the waters - they need howl into the void no longer. They are not alone.