Other editions of book The Return of the Soldier: By Rebecca West - Illustrated

"An authentic masterpiece." — The North American Review Returning to his stately English home from the chaos of World War I, a shell-shocked officer finds that he has left much of his memory in the front's muddy trenches. The three women who love him best anxiously await his arrival: the thoughtful and intuitive cousin who narrates the story, the lovely wife he cannot recognize, and the woman with whom he shared a summer romance 15 years ago. Rebecca West's novel depicts neither battles nor battlefields. This remarkable tale takes a searching look at the far-reaching effects of the first modern war on a sheltered society. The Return of the Soldier effectively and memorably captures the spirit of England in the throes of unwelcome change. It is a penetrating view of the nation's shifting class structures and offers a sensitive portrayal of individuals torn between nostalgia for their irretrievable past and acceptance of their conflicted present.

Writing her first novel during World War I, West examines the relationship between three women and a soldier suffering from shell-shock. This novel of an enclosed world invaded by public events also embodies in its characters the shifts in England's class structures at the beginning of the twentieth century.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Rebecca West’s stunning debut novel: The classic story of a soldier’s amnesia and its effect on the women in his life A strange woman arrives at the door with unsettling news for Jenny and her sister-in-law Kitty: Jenny’s husband has lost his memory while fighting in the war. As their solider returns home, the women discover that his mind is stuck on the woman he loved fifteen years before—the same woman who first delivered the news of his memory loss and whom Jenny and Kitty regard as socially beneath them. As they care for him and react to this news, they come to understand the power of love—past, present, unrequited, and unconditional. Psychologically astute, West’s unforgettable first work of fiction reveals her innate skill at understanding the constructs of class that hamper people’s attempts to connect with one another.

A soldier returns home transformed by World War I, sending shock waves through the lives of three women, in Rebecca West’s groundbreaking debut novel Jenny has been waiting for the return of her cousin, Lieutenant Chris Baldry, from the faraway front lines of the war in France. She has kept vigil alongside Chris’s wife, Kitty, who has also been mourning the death of their first child. However, when Chris returns to their isolated estate outside of London, he is a man transformed, suffering from shell shock and believing he is still twenty years old. He is baffled by his surroundings, which have somehow aged beyond his memory, and he’s hopelessly, obsessively in love with a woman. Except—the woman he’s in love with is not his wife. He doesn’t even remember her, or the son they lost. Instead, he declares his undying love for Margaret, a poor innkeeper’s daughter with whom he shared a passionate summer romance fifteen years prior. Rebecca West published her often-overlooked debut novel at the age of only twenty-six during the height of World War I, and was one of the first writers to explore the impact of posttraumatic stress in literature. The result is a tense, gripping portrait of sacrifice, regret, and the transformative power of war to alter our understanding of ourselves.

Writing her first novel during World War I, West examines the relationship between three women and a soldier suffering from shell-shock. This novel of an enclosed world invaded by public events also embodies in its characters the shifts in England's class structures at the beginning of the twentieth century.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

That day its beauty was an affront to me, because, like most Englishwomen of my time, I was wishing for the return of a soldier. Disregarding the national interest and everything else except the keen prehensile gesture of our hearts toward him, I wanted to snatch my Cousin Christopher from the wars and seal him in this green pleasantness his wife and I now looked upon. Of late I had had bad dreams about him. By nights I saw Chris running across the brown rottenness of No-Man's-Land, starting back here because he trod upon a hand, not even looking there because of the awfulness of an unburied head, and not till my dream was packed full of horror did I see him pitch forward on his knees as he reached safety, if it was that. For on the war-films I have seen men slip down as softly from the trench-parapet, and none but the grimmer philosophers could say that they had reached safety by their fall. And when I escaped into wakefulness it was only to lie stiff and think of stories I had heard in the boyish voice of the modern subaltern, which rings indomitable, yet has most of its gay notes flattened: "We were all of us in a barn one night, and a shell came along. My pal sang out, 'Help me, old man; I've got no legs!' and I had to answer, 'I can't, old man; I've got no hands!'" Well, such are the dreams of Englishwomen to-day. I could not complain, but I wished for the return of our soldier.- Taken from "The Return of the Soldier" written by Rebecca West

A soldier returns home transformed by World War I, sending shock waves through the lives of three women, in Rebecca West’s groundbreaking debut novel Jenny has been waiting for the return of her cousin, Lieutenant Chris Baldry, from the faraway front lines of the war in France. She has kept vigil alongside Chris’s wife, Kitty, who has also been mourning the death of their first child. However, when Chris returns to their isolated estate outside of London, he is a man transformed, suffering from shell shock and believing he is still twenty years old. He is baffled by his surroundings, which have somehow aged beyond his memory, and he’s hopelessly, obsessively in love with a woman. Except—the woman he’s in love with is not his wife. He doesn’t even remember her, or the son they lost. Instead, he declares his undying love for Margaret, a poor innkeeper’s daughter with whom he shared a passionate summer romance fifteen years prior. Rebecca West published her often-overlooked debut novel at the age of only twenty-six during the height of World War I, and was one of the first writers to explore the impact of posttraumatic stress in literature. The result is a tense, gripping portrait of sacrifice, regret, and the transformative power of war to alter our understanding of ourselves.

After fighting in the trenches during the First World War, Captain Chris Baldry returns home a different man. Shell-shocked and finding it difficult to cope, Captain Baldry’s mental trauma takes a toll on both himself and the family who anxiously awaited his safe return.The Return of the Soldier was author Rebecca West’s first novel, but it was not until recent decades that literary critics and scholars recognized the work as a complex and important piece of literature depicting the First World War era. The book was adapted into a movie of the same name in 1982.HarperPerennial Classics brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperPerennial Classics collection to build your digital library.

Cicely Isabel Fairfield (1892-1983), known by her pen name Rebecca West, or Dame Rebecca West, DBE was an English author, journalist, literary critic and travel writer. A prolific, protean author who wrote in many genres, West was committed to feminist and liberal principles and was one of the foremost public intellectuals of the twentieth century. Her novel "The Return of the Soldier" is a noted modernist World War I novel. Other works include the "Aubrey trilogy" of autobiographical novels, "The Fountain Overflows," "This Real Night," and "Cousin Rosamund." Time called her "indisputably the world's number one woman writer" in 1947.