Description

The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West (1990 ed.)

Rebecca West’s The Return of the Soldier is a haunting and innovative World War I novel that explores the psychological cost of war through the lens of memory, love, and identity. The story centers on Captain Chris Baldry, a decorated soldier who returns home suffering from shell shock—his memory erased of the past fifteen years, including his marriage and adult life.

Instead, Chris believes himself to be young and in love with Margaret, a woman from his past whose life has taken a very different path. As his wife Kitty, cousin Jenny, and Margaret herself struggle to respond to his condition, the novel examines the tension between emotional truth and social expectation, asking whether healing requires remembering—or forgetting.

Told with striking psychological insight, The Return of the Soldier was one of the earliest English novels to address trauma and shell shock, and remains a powerful study of war’s quiet devastation. West’s spare, elegant prose reveals how conflict reshapes not only soldiers, but the lives and relationships they leave behind.

Copyright: Originally published in 1918. This paperback was published by Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc. in 1990 with cover art including “‘A SMALL MASTERPIECE’ – TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT“

Condition: Okay. Used. Vintage.

ISBN-10: 0881846589

ISBN-13: 9780881846584

Dewey Decimal: 823.912