The Return of the Soldier »

About the Introducer

VERLYN KLINKENBORG, the author of Making Hay, The Last Fine Time, and The Rural Life, has written for numerous publications. A member of the editorial board of The New York Times, he lives in upstate New York.

Set during World War I on an isolated country estate just outside London, Rebecca West’s haunting novel The Return of the Soldier follows Chris Baldry, a shell-shocked captain suffering from amnesia, as he makes a bittersweet homecoming to the three women who have helped shape his life. Will the devoted wife he can no longer recollect, the favorite cousin he remembers only as a childhood friend, and the poor innkeeper’s daughter he once courted leave Chris to languish in a safe, dreamy past—or will they help him recover his memory so that he can return to the front? The answer is revealed through a heartwrenching, unexpected sacrifice.
The text of this Modern Library Paperback Classic was set from the first American edition, published in 1918, and features original illustrations by Norman Price.

Booknews

<:st> Reprint of West's 1918 short novel of war, amnesia, manners. Cited in Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)