Modernist texts and writings of protest have until now received most of the critical attention of literary scholars of the First World War. Popular literature with its penchant for predictable storylines, melodramatic prose, and patriotic rhetoric has been much-maligned or at the very least ignored. Boys in Khaki, Girls in Print: Women's Literary Responses to the Great War redresses the balance. It turns the spotlight on the novels and memoirs of women
writers - many of whom are now virtually forgotten - that appealed to a British reading public hungry for amusement, news, and above all, encouragement in the face of uncertainty and grief. The writers of 1914-18 had powerful models for interpreting their war, as a consideration of texts from the Anglo-Boer War
of 1899-1902 shows. They were also bolstered by wartime publishing practices that reinforced the sense that their books, whether fiction or non-fiction, were not simply 'light' entertainment but a powerful agents of propaganda. Generously illustrated, Boys in Khaki, Girls in Print is a scholarly yet accessible illumination of a hitherto untapped resource of women's writing and is an important new contribution to the study of the literature of the Great War.
- ISBN10 6610758522
- ISBN13 9786610758524
- Publish Date 12 August 2005 (first published 1 January 2005)
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 17 July 2012
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Oxford University Press
- Format eBook
- Pages 272
- Language English