Epitaphs of the Great War - Sarah Wearne

Epitaphs of the Great War - The Last 100 Days is the third instalment in an edited collection ofheadstone inscriptions from the graves of those killed during the Great War. Limited by theImperial War Graves Commission to sixty-six characters - far more restrictive than Twitter's140-character rule - these inscriptions are masterpieces of compact emotion containing asthey do the distilled essence of thousands of responses to the war. However, their enforcedbrevity means that many inscriptions relied on the reader being able to pick up on thereferences and allusions, or recognise the quotations - and many twenty-first-century readersdo not. In this selection of one hundred inscriptions from the battlefield cemeteries, theauthor, by expanding the context - religious, literary or personal - has been able to give fullvoice to the bereaved. This volume covers those killed in France and Flanders during the period commonly known asthe last 100 days of the war, a period from 8 August to 11 November 1918.