Over There

Enoch Arnold Bennett was one of the most remarkable literary figures of his time, a product of the English Potteries that he made famous as the Five Towns. Bennett published his first novel The Man from the North in 1898. This was followed by Anna of the Five Towns (1902), The Old Wives' Tale (1908), Clayhanger (1910), The Card (1911) and Hilda Lessways (1911).

Soon after the outbreak of the First World War, Charles Mastermanthe, head of the War Propaganda Bureau summoned twenty-five leading British authors to Wellington House, to dissertate on ways of best propagandize Britain's interests during the war.

Those who attended the meeting included Bennett, Arthur Conan Doyle, John Masefield, Ford Madox Ford, William Archer, G. K. Chesterton, Sir Henry Newbolt, John Galsworthy, Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, Gilbert Parker, G. M. Trevelyan and H. G. Wells. In June, 1915, the War Propaganda Bureau arranged for Bennett to tour the Western Front.

Bennett was deeply shocked by the conditions in the trenches and was physically ill for several weeks afterwards. His friend, Frank Swinnerton, later recalled, "he visited the front as a duty, and was horrified at what he saw and felt that he must not express that horror."

Nonetheless, Bennett agreed to provide an account of the war that would only encourage men to join the British Army. The result was Over There: War Scenes on the Western Front (1915), finally available again in this quality paperback reissue. It is required reading not just for all history buffs, but for students of psychology, political science and advertising as well.