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Wrappers. Spine a little faded. "'D' Company was written towards the close of 1914, when I was a private in a Territorial battalion at Malta. It is, in one sense, real: there is scarcely a sentence in it that I did not hear, or an episode I did not witness. It is, in another sense, unreal: it is impossible, even for the purposes of realism, to set down here in print the actual language of my barrack-room. The three or four unpleasant words that occurred extraordinarily often and in the queerest series of combinations and connections, not only created a certain atmosphere of ugliness that would be necessary for any really true picture of life then, but also supplied a sort of lilt to the conversation that cannot be reproduced without them . . . Some slight foot trouble was responsible for my being invalided home and out of the Army. That was in January, 1915. Since then my view of this colossal catastrophe of the war has changed" (Preface). William Miles Malleson (1888-1969), actor and dramatist, became a pacifist - the publication of these plays caused a rumpus, and the police seized copies from the publisher under the Defence of the Realm Act. Speaking in the House of Commons, Henry Forster (later Lord Forster), Financial Secretary for the War Office, said he was advised that the book was "a deliberate calumny on the British soldier". Seller Inventory # GW100073
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