A Book Review of Alice Kelly, Commemorative Modernisms: Women Writers, Death and the First World War. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020. xi + 297pp

Alan Ali Saeed, Department of English, College of Languages, University of SulaimaniFollow

Abstract

This book focuses on the way women experienced and depicted the First World War in their writing, in terms of the impact of the immense casualties, as well as the war’s questionable justification. It suggests women’s writing was to play a key role in the subsequent mourning for and commemoration of the dead that was to be integral to post-war British culture. In doing so, the book asks two important questions. First, whether women and men saw this commemoration differently and second, whether women’s modernist literary output was substantially influenced and changed by the impact of the deaths and the process of commemoration. It is organized through several case studies on nurse narratives, Edith Wharton, Katherine Mansfield, H.D., and Virginia Woolf.

Recommended Citation

Saeed, Alan Ali (2025) "A Book Review of Alice Kelly, Commemorative Modernisms: Women Writers, Death and the First World War. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020. xi + 297pp," Journal of Arts and Social Sciences: Vol. 16 : Iss. 1 , Article 12.
Available at: https://doi.org/10.53542/2522-2279.1410