All Quiet on the Western Front

All Quiet on the Western Front

Vintage Quarterbound Classics

Summary

A beautiful hardback edition of the most famous anti-war novel ever written, translated by Brian Murdoch.

'A necessary, shattering read' Irish Times

In 1914, a room full of German schoolboys, fresh-faced and idealistic, are goaded by their schoolmaster to troop off to the 'glorious war'.

With the fire and patriotism of youth they sign up. One by one the boys begin to fall...

Rediscover the iconic, moving story of a young 'unknown soldier' experiencing the horror and disillusionment of life in the trenches.

'Remarque's evocation of the horrors of modern warfare has lost none of its force' The Times

Vintage Quarterbound Classics: Bound to be beautiful

Reviews

  • [A] masterpiece… For the first time a writer gave a raw, pitiless account of men killing each other, by any means possible… its unrelenting honesty makes it hard to read it as anything else
    Economist

About the author

Erich Maria Remarque

Erich Maria Remarque was a German author and veteran of the First World War. He was born 1898 in Osnabrück, Germany. At the age of 18 he was conscripted into the German army. During his service he was wounded by shrapnel in the left leg, right arm and neck. Following the war he worked as a primary school teacher, and later as a librarian, a journalist and a technical writer.
Among Remarque’s published novels were All Quiet on the Western Front, The Road Back, Three Comrades and Arch of Triumph. His works were publicly burned by the Nazi German government, and in 1947 he and his first wife became naturalised citizens of the United States. Four years earlier, his sister had been executed at the behest of Hitler’s ‘People’s Court’.

Remarque adapted the book Ten Days to Die, about Hitler’s final days, as a screenplay, and he also wrote for the stage. His last novel was The Night in Lisbon, published in 1962. During his lifetime Remarque married twice and had love affairs with the actresses Hedy Lamarr, Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo.
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