The Return of the Soldier

This powerful debut novel first published in 1918 opens with the return of a shell-shocked Captain Chris Baldry from the trenches of WW1. It grapples with the devastation of mental trauma from that war and its effects on families, and reveals the growing shifts in England’s class structures. This haunting story of love, loss and sacrifice has been described as one of the earliest attempts by a writer to examine the psychological effects on the soldiers who survived that early 20th Century conflict.