Beyond Their Limits of Longing

In America, WWI became overshadowed by WWII and Vietnam, further diluting the voices of poets, novelists, essayists, and scholars who unknowingly set a precedent for all successive war writers who appear in this collection. Those who survived WWI and wrote about it opened the space for readers and writers alike to explore the complexity both of war’s physical and mental horrors and of its historical significance in today’s world in crises. From the vast scenes on the battlefield to the fight at the home front, WWI writing and scholarship in this collection allows us, through contemporary perspectives, to inhabit the mind and body of individual soldiers, doctors, nurses, civilians, and families.

Beyond Their Limits of Longing serves as a hybrid thematic collection of personal stories, biographies, scholarly work, fiction, and poetry.