Books by Frederic Manning

¿Frederic Manning is generally acknowledged as the finest novelist of the Western Front. Born in Australia, novelist and poet Frederic Manning moved to England in his youth and was an off-and-on presence there for much of his life. He enlisted during 1915 into the Shropshire Light Infantry, and served in France during 1916 as 'Private 19022'. The Shropshires saw heavy fighting on the Somme, and Manning's four months there provided the background to Her Privates We. An undisputed classic of war writing and a lasting tribute to all who participated in the war to end all wars.

With an Introduction by Niall Ferguson'Kill the buggers! Kill the bloody fucking swine! Kill them!'Bourne is a private fighting on the front. He is under pressure to accept a commission and become an officer, but he prefers to be among the ranks, drawn into the universal struggle for survival in a world gone mad.Manning's startling work is unlike any other First World War novel in its portrayal of the lives of ordinary British soldiers: the trauma of the Somme; the moments of bloodlust; the camaraderie, rivalry, alcohol and boredom. Considered obscene for its language and previously published in censored form as Her Privates We, The Middle Parts of Fortune appears here in its raw, unexpurgated version.

The honesty with which he wrote about the horror, the boredom, and the futility of war inspired Ernest Hemingway to read the novel every year, 'to remember how things really were so that I will never lie to myself nor to anyone else about them.

A novel about the Battle of the Somme told from the perspective of Bourne, an ordinary private. First published privately in 1929, it may amaze a new generation of readers with its depiction of the horror, the ordinariness and the humanity of war.