The Return of the Soldier

The Return of the Soldier is the debut novel of English novelist Rebecca West, first published in 1918. The novel recounts the return of the shell shocked Captain Chris Baldry from the trenches of The First World War from the perspective of his female cousin Jenny. The novel grapples with the soldier's return from World War I with trauma and its effects on the family, and optimistically suggests that psychoanalysis might offer a simple cure to the trauma.