On Active Service

Great War Dust Jackets

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The

“On Active Service”

Series

John Lane, The Bodley Head

“In the ‘On Active Service’ series Mr. John Lane is bringing together a collection of narratives by eye-witnesses, in the Great War, of typical experiences at the front, and also other accounts of special dramatic or historical interest. The publisher believes that as Europe settles slowly into the new order the War will appear more and more extraordinary in its gigantic perspective and astounding range. The very men who now wish to forget it will be interested in narratives which recall to their memories the strange atmosphere of 1914-1918, and innumerable people will turn with curiosity to genuine chronicles of these amazing years.”

This, the longest contemporary series of War memoirs, was published by Bodley Head between 1919 & 1922. Although now little regarded and rather scarce they do form a unique & compelling body of narratives which in many cases are well worth reading. I print below the original introduction to the series.

The standard format cloth binding used for the earlier publications in the series.

Probably the scarcest of the series available from Peter Harrington Books

The only copies I can find in their original jackets. The Helen Bournois & Ernest Betts are taken from b&w photos. My Seaforth Highlanders volume carries the signature of Thomas Hope Floyd who wrote another vol.in the series ‘At Ypres with Best-Dunkley’

The following is a list of all 28 titles in the series. If you are aware of any others please let me know.

‘Aquila’	With the Cavalry in the West	1922
S. Ashmead - Bartlett	From the Somme to the Rhine	1921
Ernest Betts	The Bagging of Baghdad	1920
H. C. W. Bishop	A Kut Prisoner	1920
Helen Boulnois	Some Soldiers and Little Mama	1919
‘Corporal’ (John Crofts)	Field Ambulance Sketches	1919
Stanley Coxon	Dover During the Dark Days	1919
Ellen Davies	Ward Tales	1920
T. H. Floyd	At Ypres with Best-Dunkley	1920
Daryl Klein	With the Chinks	1919
Dorothy Lawrence	Sapper Dorothy Lawrence	1919
S. H. Long	In the Blue	1920
J. C. Macintosh	Men & Tanks	1921
Clutha Mackenzie	The Tale of a Trooper	1921
Andre Maurois	Silence of Colonel Bramble	1919
George Muhlhauser	Small Craft	1920
‘Orex’	Three Chevrons	1919
W. G. Peterson	Silhouettes of Mars	1920
R N V	Pushing Water	1919
Cecil Sommers	Temporary Crusaders	1919
John Still	A Prisoner in Turkey	1920
D. Sutherland	War Diary 5th Seaforth Highlanders	1920
Henrietta Tayler	A Scottish Nurse at Work	1920
G. W. Taylor	The Boy with the Guns	1919
Beatrice Thompson	Four Months in Italy in War-Time	1920
C. Hampton Thorp	A Handful of Ausseys	1919
Douglas Walshe	With the Serbs in Macedonia	1920
Ernest Warburton	Behind Boche Bars	1920

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These 3 volumes have been kindly supplied courtesy of the Random House Group Archive & Library.