The Middle Parts of Fortune : Somme and Ancre, 1916 extract   novel   war literature  
Issue Details: First known date: 2004... 2004 The Middle Parts of Fortune : Somme and Ancre, 1916
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Notes

  • Editor's note: The son of a four-time Sydney lord mayor, Frederic Manning was residing in England when war broke out in 1914. He enlisted in the British Army and endured the vicious trench warfare on the Western Front. This experience provided the basis of his novel The Middle Parts of Fortune (sometimes known as Her Privates We, the title of its expurgated version). Though much admired internationally - Ernest Hemingway thought it 'the finest and noblest book of men in war' - the novel was until recently neglected in Australia. Bourne, its autobiographical protagonist, is regarded as an oddity by his largely proletarian English comrades. "Not of their country...not even of their country...and only partially of their race', he's an erudite Francophile who betrays a streak of colonial irreverence and independence.
  • From Volume One, chapter five: pp 105-116

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon On the War-Path : An Anthology of Australian Military Travel On the Warpath : An Anthology of Australian Military Travel Robin Gerster (editor), Peter Pierce (editor), Carlton : Melbourne University Press , 2004 Z1108788 2004 anthology prose autobiography extract poetry criticism diary essay travel war literature 'This anthology reveals the many ways in which going to war has formed a cultural bridge between Australia and the world. From the Sudan in 1885 to Afghanistan in 2001, the connection of war to travel is illustrated by writers and reveals how the experience of war has both broadened and refined (and sometimes distorted) Australian views of the world.' From cover of On the War-Path : An Anthology of Australian Military Travel (2004) Carlton : Melbourne University Press , 2004 pg. 121-127
Last amended 7 Jul 2014 12:45:02
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