The War That Used Up Words: American Writers and the First World War

303 Pages·2015·2.032 MB·English

by  Hazel Hutchison

The War That Used Up Words
This page intentionally left blank
The War That
Used Up Words
American Writers and
the First World War
Hazel Hutchison
New Haven & London
Published with assistance from the Mary Cady Tew Memorial Fund.
Copyright © 2015 by Hazel Hutchison.
All rights reserved.
This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations,
in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the
U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written
permission from the publishers.
Yale University Press books may be purchased in quantity for educational, business,
or promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected] (U.S. offi ce)
or [email protected] (U.K. offi ce).
Set in Bulmer type by Westchester Book Group, Danbury, Connecticut.
Printed in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hutchison, Hazel.
The war that used up words : American writers and the fi rst world war / Hazel
Hutchison.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-300-19502-6 (hardback)
1. American literature—20th century—History and criticism. 2. World War,
1914–1918—United States—Literature and the war. I. Title.
PS228.W37H88 2015
810.9'358—dc23
2014032474
A cata logue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48- 1992 (Permanence of Paper).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
In memory of my grandfather
William Craig Eadie
1892–1982
who served in the
Royal Army Medical Corps, 1914– 1919
This page intentionally left blank
Contents
Ac know ledg ments ix
Introduction 1
One
1914—Civilization 27
Two
1915—Volunteers 67
Three
1916—Books 118
Four
1917—Perspectives 161
Five
1918—Compromises 202
Aftermath 236
Notes 243
Bibliography 269
Index 283
This page intentionally left blank
Ac know ledg ments
In 2001, as a raw, new teaching fellow at the University of Aberdeen, I was
given the task of writing a lecture on First World War poetry for a course
on writing and gender. I was already having an absurdly busy year, and I
knew almost nothing about war poetry. I remember thinking that this
could turn out to be a lot of work. How right I was. A dozen years on, how-
ever, I am very grateful to Jeannette King and Flora Alexander for con-
spiring to set me to work on this subject. Without the groundwork done
for that lecture, and the discovery of poems by Mary Borden and Grace
Fallow Norton, which instantly caught my imagination, this book would
never have happened.
Since then, I have read and traveled widely, and have incurred many
debts to individuals and institutions that have facilitated access to print
and manuscript sources. I would like to thank: the Beinecke Library, Yale
University; Boston Public Library; Cambridge University Library; the
Carnegie Trust; the Center for Henry James Studies at Creighton Univer-
sity, especially Katie Sommer and Greg Zacharias; Churchill College Ar-
chives, University of Cambridge, especially Sophie Bridges; Jane Conway;
Duff Hart-Davis; the Houghton Library, Harvard University, especially
Susan Halpert; the Howard Gotleib Archival Research Center, Boston
University; the James Graham Leyburn Library, Washington and Lee
University, especially Vaughn Stanley; King’s College Archives, Univer-
sity of Cambridge; the National Library of Scotland; the Special Collec-
tions Centre, University of Aberdeen; the United States National Archives
and Rec ords Administration; University of Chicago Archives. Ellen Weiss
is due special thanks for her hospitality and generous sharing of unpub-
lished family papers.
Many friends and contacts off ered wisdom and encouragement,
corrected stray facts, or pointed me in the direction of new material: Mairi
Brunning, Pat Carter, Santanu Das, Alison Fell, Tamara Follini, Chris-
tine Hallett, Margaret Higonnet, Philip Horne, Tim Kendall, Tim Lustig,
ix