The Return of the Soldier

Rebecca West

Mar 2011 · Open Road Media

About this ebook

Rebecca West’s stunning debut novel: The classic story of a soldier’s amnesia and its effect on the women in his life
 A strange woman arrives at the door with unsettling news for Jenny and her sister-in-law Kitty: Jenny’s husband has lost his memory while fighting in the war. As their solider returns home, the women discover that his mind is stuck on the woman he loved fifteen years before—the same woman who first delivered the news of his memory loss and whom Jenny and Kitty regard as socially beneath them. As they care for him and react to this news, they come to understand the power of love—past, present, unrequited, and unconditional. Psychologically astute, West’s unforgettable first work of fiction reveals her innate skill at understanding the constructs of class that hamper people’s attempts to connect with one another.

About the author

Dame Rebecca West (1892–1983) is one of the most critically acclaimed English novelists, journalists, and literary critics of the twentieth century. Uniquely wide-ranging in subject matter and breathtakingly intelligent in her ability to take on the oldest and knottiest problems of human relations, West was a thoroughly entertaining public intellectual. In her eleven novels, beginning with The Return of the Soldier, she explored topics including feminism, socialism, love, betrayal, and identity. West’s prolific journalistic works include her coverage of the Nuremberg trials for the New Yorker, published as A Train of Powder, and Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, her epic study of Yugoslavia. She had a son with H.G. Wells, and later married banker Henry Maxwell Andrews, continuing to write, and publish, until she died in London at age ninety.