The Penguin Book of First World War Stories (47 page)

Perry, Anne (1938–)

Born in London as Juliet Marion Hulme, she grew up mostly in New Zealand and now lives in Scotland. Perry was educated privately – her health was poor – and later worked in a variety of jobs before becoming a writer in 1972. As well as her two series of Victorian detective tales – one featuring Inspector Pitt, the other private-investigator Monk – Perry began in 2003 a new series set during the First World War. She has published several First World War novels, in which Cambridge professor and military chaplain Joseph Reavley solves mysterious criminal cases at the front and, aided by his agent brother and two sisters, fights the machinations of the mysterious ‘Peacemaker' behind the lines.

‘Sapper': McNeile, Herman Cyril (1888–1937)

Born to a Royal Navy captain, then educated at Cheltenham and Woolwich, McNeile joined the Corps of Royal Engineers in 1907. His pseudonym ‘Sapper' is taken from the equivalent rank to ‘private' with the Engineers. A prolific and popular short-story writer, McNeile turned out numerous stories about his war experiences, which were first published in the
Daily Mail
and collected in one volume in 1930. He remains best known for his
Bulldog Drummond
stories, written after the war, featuring a former British army captain turned private investigator. During the war, McNeile was awarded the Military Cross and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel. While his later works have been characterized as racist and kitsch, his war stories are marked by his ‘professional' viewpoint: although realistic, they do not condemn the war but stress the endurance and hardiness of British soldiers.

Spark, Muriel (1918–2006)

Muriel Sarah Camberg, of Jewish-Scottish descent, was educated in Edinburgh. At nineteen, she went to Southern Rhodesia (today Zimbabwe) to marry teacher Sidney Oswald Spark. The marriage soon ended in divorce. In 1944 Spark went back to Britain, where she worked for MI6 until the end of the Second World War. Besides writing poetry and fiction, she was also a journalist and editor, and published critical works on writers such as Mary Shelley and John Masefield. During the early 1960s Spark moved to New York to work for the
New Yorker
, and in 1967 settled in Italy, where she remained until her death. She published more than twenty novels – most famously
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
(1961) – and numerous short stories, which appeared in a Penguin edition,
Collected Stories
(1994). The recipient of a great number of honorary degrees and awards, Spark was created Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1993.

Walpole, Sir Hugh (1884–1941)

Born in New Zealand to an Anglican priest, Walpole was educated in Canterbury and Cambridge. After his studies, he remained in Britain, eventually settling in the Lake District. A successful and popular novelist, critic and playwright, he worked for the Red Cross in Russia during the war. His war experiences inspired two of his best-known novels,
The Dark Forest
(1916), which ran into several editions even in the first year after its publication, and
The Secret City
(1919). In the Second World War, Walpole again engaged in volunteer war work, during which he was killed in 1941.

Wells, A. W. (1894–1977)

Wells, about whom little biographical information is obtainable, was the author of one collection of short stories,
All This Is Ended
(1936) and a travel book on South Africa,
South Africa: A Planned Tour of the Country To-day
, which was first published in 1939 and ran into several editions during the 1940s and 1950s. His only novel,
The Secret of a City
, was published in 1958.

‘The Bowmen' from
The Collected Arthur Machen
by Arthur Machen, copyright © 1988 by The Estate of Arthur Machen. Published by Gerald Duckworth. Reprinted by permission of A. M. Heath & Co. Ltd.

‘Private Meyrick–Company Idiot' from
Men, Women and Guns
by ‘Sapper' Herman Cyril McNeile. Published by Hodder & Stoughton.

‘A Trade Report Only' from
Fiery Particles
by C. E. Montague. Published by Chatto & Windus.

‘Victory' from
Roads to Glory
by Richard Aldington, copyright © 1930 by The Estate of Richard Aldington. Published by Chatto & Windus. Reprinted by permission of Rosica Colin Ltd.

‘Heroes' by Anne Perry from
Murder and Obsession
, ed. Otto Penzler, copyright © 1999 by Anne Perry. Published by Orion. Reprinted by permission of the author.

‘Blind' from
The Forbidden Zone
by Mary Borden, published by William Heinemann. Reprinted by permission of Duff Hart-Davis.

‘An Indiscreet Journey' from
Something Childish and Other Stories
by Katherine Mansfield. Published by Constable. Reprinted by permission of Constable & Robinson Ltd.

‘The Tale' from the
Complete Short Fiction of Joseph Conrad
, Vol. 2, by Joseph Conrad. Published by Pickering.

‘Chanson Triste' by Arthur Walter Wells from
Best Short Stories of 1925
, ed. Edward J. O'Brien. Published by Jonathan Cape.

‘His Last Bow' by Arthur Conan Doyle from
Strand Magazine
.

‘Giulia Lazzari' from
Ashenden
by W. Somerset Maugham. Published by William Heinemann. Reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Ltd.

‘The Loathly Opposite' from
The Runagates Club
by John Buchan, copyright © 1928 by The Estate of John Buchan. Published by Thomas Nelson. Reprinted by permission of A. P. Watt Ltd.

‘Mary Postgate' from
A Diversity of Creatures
by Rudyard Kipling. Published by Macmillan.

‘Them Others' by Stacy Aumonier from
Great Short Stories of the War
, ed. H. C. Minchin. Published by Eyre & Spottiswoode.

‘Told by the Schoolmaster' from
Forsytes, Pendyces and Others
by John Galsworthy. Published by William Heinemann.

‘Tickets, Please' from
England, My England
by D. H. Lawrence. Published by Thomas Seltzer.

‘Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself' from
Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself
by Radclyffe Hall. Published by William Heinemann. Reprinted by permission of Jonathan Lovat Dickson/A. M. Heath & Co. Ltd.

‘Nobody' from
The Thirteen Travellers
by Hugh Walpole. Published by Hutchinson.

‘Once a Hero' by Harold Brighouse from
Best British Short Stories of 1922
, eds. Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos. Published by Longmans Green.

‘The Fly' from
The Dove's Nest
by Katherine Mansfield. Published by Constable. Reprinted by permission of Constable & Robinson Ltd.

‘The Casualty List' from
Truth Is Not Sober
by Winifred Holtby. Published by Collins. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

‘Christmas Truce' from
Collected Short Stories
by Robert Graves, copyright © 1962 by The Estate of Robert Graves. Published by Cassell. Reprinted by permission of Carcanet Press Ltd.

‘The First Year of My Life' by Muriel Spark from
The Penguin Book of British Comic Short Stories
, ed. Patricia Craig, copyright © 1975 by The Estate of Muriel Spark. Published by Viking. Reprinted by permission of David Higham Associates Ltd.

‘Company' by Robert Grossmith from
The Minerva Book of Short Stories 3
, eds. Giles Gordon and David Hughes, copyright © 1989 by Robert Grossmith. Published by Mandarin. Reprinted by permission of the author.

‘Evermore' from
Cross Channel
by Julian Barnes, copyright © 1996 by Julian Barnes. Published by Jonathan Cape (UK) and Alfred A. Knopf (USA). Reprinted by permission of Jonathan Cape, an imprint of The Random House Group Ltd, and by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.

Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders. The publishers would be interested to hear from any copyright holders not here acknowledged, and will be pleased to rectify any mistakes or omissions in subsequent editions.