"Sometimes it is the stark, matter-of-fact letters from uprooted soldiers home that best capture the mood of the times. Such is the case with Alfred Earl Jones, a private from rural California who fought in World War I, whose letters provide personal drama and are historically informative." - Peter Krass, author of Portrait of War: The U.S. Army's First Combat Artists and the Doughboys' Experience in WWI "This marvelously annotated collection of letters transports us back to the training camps, high seas, and battlefields; recounting the novelty, boredom and terror that so many young American men experienced going to war in 1917-18. These citizen-soldiers remained civilians at heart, and these letters attest to the importance of family in keeping men going at the front - offering an invaluable lesson for Americans today." - Jennifer D. Keene, author of Doughboys, the Great War and the Remaking of America (2001).

Reproduction of the original. The publishing house Megali specialises in reproducing historical works in large print to make reading easier for people with impaired vision.

THE INSPIRATION BEHIND THE BBC DRAMA THE CRIMSON FIELD 'On the face of it, ' writes Lyn Macdonald, 'no one could have been less equipped for the job than these gently nurtured girls who walked straight out of Edwardian drawing rooms into the manifest horrors of the First World War ...' Yet the volunteer nurses rose magnificently to the occasion. In leaking tents and draughty huts they fought another war, a war against agony and death, as men lay suffering from the pain of unimaginable wounds or diseases we can now cure almost instantly. It was here that young doctors frantically forged new medical techniques - of blood transfusion, dentistry, psychiatry and plastic surgery - in the attempt to save soldiers shattered in body or spirit. And it was here that women achieved a quiet but permanent revolution, by proving beyond question they could do anything. All this is superbly captured in The Roses of No Man's Land, a panorama of hardship, disillusion and despair, yet also of endurance and supreme courage. 'Lyn Macdonald writes splendidly and touchingly of the work of the nurses and doctors who fought their humanitarian battle on the Western Front' Sunday Telegraph Over the past twenty years Lyn Macdonald has established a popular reputation as an author and historian of the First World War. Her books are based on the accounts of eyewitnesses and survivors, told in their own words, and cast a unique light on the First World War. Most are published by Penguin.