Lines of Fire: Women Writers of World War 1

by Margaret R. Higonnet

Compiled together for the first time in one collection, "Lines Of Fire" presents the political treatises, medical accounts, diary entries, poetry, and letters written by women on both the home-front and on the battlefront during the First World War. Through the words of mothers, nurses, journalists, and soldiers, editor Margaret R. Higonnet provides the varied and often conflicting points of view women held during the war and challenges the traditional definition of "war literature."

Included in this vast illustrated collection are:
-- "The Refugees" and "Writing a War Story" by Edith Wharton
-- "Verdun" by Colette
-- "Letter to Captain Bouchardon" by Mata Hari
-- "A Driver at the Front" by Katherine Hodges North
-- Poetry by Amy Lowell, Marianne Moore, and Beatrice Mayor

Genres: Nonfiction, History, War, Reference, World War I

574 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1999

Reviews

[Shelby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bought this for a WWI class I took in college. Excellent jumping off point for a young scholar or person interested in how women experienced the Great War in various capacities, ranging from maintaining the homefront to providing care behind or even fighting on the front lines. Features shorter passages from other works that I would not have been otherwise introduced to, such as Mabel St Clair Stobart’s The Flaming Sword in Serbia and Elsewhere or Flora Sandes’s An English woman-sergeant in the Serbian Army. This isn’t you’re be all end all source, but it is a FANTASTIC starting point!

Sidenote — if you’re a student looking for something cool to write a paper on, may I suggest Stobart’s experiences in military hospital administration in Serbia and her very interesting argument about womanhood and the cost of war?? Or if you want actual fighting on the frontlines, check out the autobiographies of Sandes and Maria Botchkareva. Or if you can find anything on her, Milunka Savic was METAL as all get out. Tbh all of these women were. Read their stories & carry them with you; they deserve that and Higonnet does an excellent job of this.

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Readers have turned to men’s battlefield histories for personal accounts of the Great War. This extraordinary book unearths the writings of an often ignored group of any war: women. Lines of Fire includes Political Writing, Journalism, Battlefront Reports, Testimonials and Diaries, War Work and Espionage, Short Fiction, Poetry and more than two dozen visual artists. Prominent writers exist alongside unknowns. The range of experiences is impressive. I was surprised to find a small number of women on the frontlines.

The quality of the writing varies but the content is gripping as authors express innocence, idealism, nationalism, loss, devastation, fear, and the struggle to survive in hellish circumstances. Of special appeal to me was the condensed biographies that preface each writer. Many of the names I recognized—Anna Akhmatova, Virginia Woolf, Rebecca West, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Katherine Mansfield, Edith Wharton, Edith Sitwell, Vera Brittain, Nancy Cunard, Isak Dinesen, and more—but the bulk of them were new to me. That was not surprising since they sprang from a host of nations, including Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Hungary, Russia, Denmark, Canada, Sweden, Poland, Romania, the United States of America, Ireland, India, Australia, Palestine, Turkey, Austria, Lebanon, Syria, New Zealand, Finland, Serbia, Czechoslovakia, Slovenia, Yugoslavia and Malawi.

There are no entries from Japanese and Chinese women. Both countries had limited participation in World War I but were expected to make sacrifices.

Most of the works of non-English-speaking writers would not have been available in translation. Editor Margaret Higonnet collaborated with historians, literary critics, colleagues and students to compile the writings and publish translations.

The condensed biographies are a treasure trove in themselves. I will be exploring many of the authors for years to come.

[Suzanne Auckerman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book at the book fair years ago and it sat on my closet shelf for probably 15 years. It is long and has very few essays written by American writers. The US was not so involved and most of the authors are from the middle east, Germany, Great Britain, France, etc. It is very enlightening about what the women went through. It is amazing what these women did. They were doctors, nurses, journalists, photographers. Many went to the front lines and brought wounded back from the front lines. Well worth reading.

[Christiana · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very cool collection of journalism, short stories, memoir vignettes, and poetry from WWI, all by women of every nation involved in the war. A fascinating range of pieces, many very strong. Edited by my awesome professor!

Read for my WWI Literature class.

[Jenn Donatelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great source for stories about World War I.