We That Were Young

By Irene Rathbone

This fierce anti-war novel by Irene Rathbone (1892-1980) is told from the perspective of a cultured former suffragist and several of her friends--young women who work at rest camps just behind the lines in France and as nurses of the severely wounded in hospitals in London. When Joan loses both her brother and lover to the war, in anger at the enemy she volunteers for work in a munitions plant, but by the end, she is a confirmed pacifist.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1558610022
• ISBN13: 9781558610026
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: Feminist Press
• Length: 528 Pages
• Weight: 1.34 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.8" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Absorbing account of WWI experiences

Irene Rathbone's fictionalized account of her WWI war-time experiences is fascinating and absorbing, but unfortunately often over-looked compared to other war memoirs. The strength of this novel is in the vivid descriptions of a variety of war work undertaken by young upper middle-class women. Rathbone details the working and social lives of her heroines employed in a YMCA canteen in France, as a VAD nurse in a London hospital, and as a munitions worker. The explicitness of her descriptions of tending the wounds of hospitalized soldiers and the conditions in a munitions factory are harrowing at times, but far more realistic than is often encountered in war-time memoirs. While some of the characters are merely stereotypes and the dialogue can be stilted at times, the exactness of her depictions of women's war work makes this recommended reading for anyone interested in WWI literature.