PearlyBooks

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Epitaphs of the Great War: Passchendaele collects the headstone inscriptions from the graves of those killed during the Third Battle of Ypres'Passchendaele. Limited by the Imperial War Graves Commission to sixty-six characters, these inscriptions are masterpieces of compact emotion. But, as Sarah Wearne shows in this collection, their enforced brevity means that many inscriptions rely on the reader being able to pick up on references and allusions, many of which are unfamiliar to twenty-first-century readers. Consequently, alongside the inscriptions Wearne offers expanded religious, literary, or anecdotal context in order to give full voice to the bereaved.

Published in association with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, this collection gathers together epitaphs of the ordinary and the famous, the privileged and the poor, generals and privates alike to offer a full perspective on those who fought and died and those they left behind.