ABSTRACT
The three soldiers' letters which make up the excerpt are from front-line troops of very different social and educational backgrounds. The first two were written by Captain Ainslie Douglas Talbot, a regular army officer, the son of a regular army Colonel, who had educated at Sandhurst. The first of them addressed to his wife Dorothy, the second to his close friend Lt Col Tom Slingsby, MC, with whom he had served in India with the Lancashire Fusiliers. The third letter written by Private David John Sweeney of the 2nd Battalion, Lincoln Regiment to his girlfriend Ivy, whom he married at the end of 1917. The letters printed here with their original spelling and punctuation. Their style reflects both their purpose as letters home and their authors' cultural values: conversational devices to simulate closeness, formal evocations of religious piety in addressing their women, and some awkward gestures in the use of literary.
