"1914"

By John Oxenham. Edite, adapted and introduced by Colin Heston.

July 25, 1914. In a quiet London suburb, merchant John Dare walks his garden at dawn. He has slept badly. Shipments from Germany have stopped without explanation, payments from the Continent have dried up, and the newspapers talk only of a minor quarrel in the Balkans. Within ten days Britain will be at war.

John Oxenham's 1914 follows two neighboring families, the Liberal Dares and the Conservative Luards, through the first six months of the Great War. Ray Luard races across a mobilizing Europe to bring Lois Dare home from Leipzig, and the two are stranded in Switzerland with less than five pounds between them. At home, Mr. Dare's business collapses overnight, the women organize relief for Belgian refugees, and spy fever turns a trusted local doctor into a suspect. The young men who once spent their days on the golf links enlist in the London Scottish and march toward the battle of Messines.

Oxenham wrote the novel while the war was still being fought, and it was published in 1916, before anyone knew how it would end. The result is a vivid record of how ordinary people met the opening months of a catastrophe, with courage, confusion, faith, and grief.

This Read-Me.Org Modernized-Classic presents the complete text with American spelling and lightly updated punctuation. It also includes:

• A new Introduction by Colin Heston on the novel, its author, and its historical moment
• 23 Review and Discussion Questions, ideal for book clubs and classrooms
• A clean, carefully formatted 5.5" × 8.5" layout

John Oxenham (William Arthur Dunkerley, 1852–1941) was one of the best-selling poets and novelists of the First World War era. He is remembered today for the hymn "In Christ There Is No East or West."

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. ..2026. p 285..