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The British Soldier and his Libraries, c. 1822-1901 considers the history of the libraries that the East India Company and Regular Army respectively established for soldiers during the nineteenth century. Drawing upon a wide range of material, including archival sources, official reports, and soldiers’ memoirs and letters, this book explores the motivations of those who were responsible for the setting up and/or operation of the libraries, and examines what they reveal about attitudes to military readers in particular and, more broadly, to working-class readers – and leisure – at this period. Murphy’s study also considers the contents of the libraries, identifying what kinds of works were provided for soldiers and where and how they read them. In so doing, The British Soldier and his Libraries, c. 1822-1901 affords another way of thinking about some of the key debates that mark book history today, and illuminates areas of interest to the general reader as well as to literary critics and military and cultural historians.
The country of the mind must also attack -- Librarians and collectors go to war -- The wild scramble for documents -- Acquisitions on a Grand Scale -- Fugitive Records of War -- Book Burning-American Style -- Not a Library, but a Large Depot of Loot.
The British Soldier and his Libraries, c. 1822-1901 considers the history of the libraries that the East India Company and Regular Army respectively established for soldiers during the nineteenth century. Drawing upon a wide range of material, including archival sources, official reports, and soldiers’ memoirs and letters, this book explores the motivations of those who were responsible for the setting up and/or operation of the libraries, and examines what they reveal about attitudes to military readers in particular and, more broadly, to working-class readers – and leisure – at this period. Murphy’s study also considers the contents of the libraries, identifying what kinds of works were provided for soldiers and where and how they read them. In so doing, The British Soldier and his Libraries, c. 1822-1901 affords another way of thinking about some of the key debates that mark book history today, and illuminates areas of interest to the general reader as well as to literary critics and military and cultural historians.
The First World War affected the lives of a whole generation of people in Britain and the Commonwealth. Most people living today will have an ancestor who fought or died in the conflict, and as the 90th anniversary of the conclusion of the war approaches, there has been a rush of people trying to trace their ancestors and understand what life for them was like during World War I. While the familiar images - the photographs, film, poetry and prose of the First World War focus on the hellish trenches, mud and death, there is another dimension to the soldiers life in the war - that of everyday life at the front. The Tommy was only in the trenches for at most one-quarter of his time overseas, and when away from the front, vigorous routine, training and order soon took over. Peter Doyle addresses this, describing the lives of British soldiers while not in the trenches at the front, exploring the life of the average soldier of the First World War and answering the question: what was it really like to be a soldier in the trenches on the frontline.