Lines of Fire

Illustrating the diversity of experience of women in WWI, this eclectic anthology is comprised of brief excerpts from political statements (heavily oriented toward socialist and pacifist beliefs), diaries, letters, published memoirs, short fiction and poetry. Short biographies of the authors--including American, British, French, German, Russian, Hungarian, Romanian, Swedish, Syrian and Indian women, among other nationalities--reveal many unknown writers and reflect a massive research effort. The more familiar names include Elizabeth Bowen, Edith Wharton and Katherine Mansfield, whose short fiction appears here. Over 100 pages are devoted to poetry, with notable selections by Anna Akhmatova, Eleanor Farjeon, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Louise Bogan, Amy Lowell and Dame Edith Sitwell. There are gripping eyewitness accounts of the maimed and dying in battle, the rape and pillage of Allied villages by German soldiers and the dire suffering in field hospitals. The shortest entry is suffragette Jeannette Rankin's Congressional ""No"" vote to U.S. entry into the war. While the literary caliber of the selections varies tremendously, the ensemble certainly proves Higonnet's thesis: that women's suffering on the homefront or in battle has never achieved recognition in the history and literature of war. This anthology provides major redress and also shows why a complete picture of the social and economic effects of war must include the experiences of women. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Nov.)