Read’s anthology is of war and for war. It catches the wider businesses of life as well but the experience of war throughout the centuries is its theme with all the things that by definition come with it. Atrides dressing himself in his armour from Chapman’s Homer,
“Then took he up his weighty shield, that round about him cast
Defensive shadows; ten bright zones of gold-affecting brass
Were driven about it, and of tin, as full of gloss as glass,
Swelled twenty bosses out of it; in centre of them all
One of black metal had engraved, full of extreme appall,
An ugly gorgon, compassed with terror and with fear.
It is a book for a man going to war to see the width of experience – how much it has been part of the lives of men and their societies through time. Given Read’s distinguished service in the First World War it is no surprise that that war holds the lion’s share of the book. Many faces of the War are represented here, the experiences of T.E.Lawrence, the Battle of Jutland, pieces by the German novelist and poet Hans Carossa, David Jones, Frederick Manning and H.M. Tomlinson.
The piece of Read’s own writing that he selected for the anthology was his painful account ‘The Retreat from St. Quentin.’
My copy belonged to R.S. Ryder and he dated it July 1940. I hope he came home safely.
The Solitary Reader 