Three Personal Records of the War - (World War I)

A fascinating work of three individual accounts of their WWI service. Two of the authors were later popular novelists and writers, and the third becoming the foremost authority on the history of the English language, and particularly slang. Ralph Hale Mottram FRSL (1883 - 1971) was an English writer. A lifelong resident of Norfolk, he was well known as a novelist, in particular for his "Spanish Farm trilogy", and as a poet of World War I. John Easton was a popular English novelist and travel writer, e.g. An Unfrequented Highway through Sikkim and Tibet to Chumolaori. Eric Honeywood Partridge (1894 - 1979) was a New Zealand-British lexicographer of the English language, particularly of its slang. He was born in New Zealand, but in 1908 the family moved to Queensland, Australia, where he studied classics and then French and English at the University of Queensland. During this time, he also worked for three years as a schoolteacher. He enlised in the Australian Imperial Force in April 1915 and served in Egypt, Gallipoli and on the Western Front, before being wounded in the Battle of Pozières. His interest in slang and the "underside" of language is said to date from his wartime experience. He returned to university between 1919 and 1921, when he received his BA. He authored numerous books and articles on language, with the best know being A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, first published in 1937. This copy is near fine in black cloth with gilt titles on the spine. Slight bumping at the spine ends and corners. End papers show minor darkening on half of each, perhaps from newspaper clippings previously laid inside. No other marks or damage at all. The unclipped DJ has minor soiling and chipping along the edges and the jacket spine is sun darkened, but overall very good. CH.…