Overview

My Dear People is made up of three different alternating ingredients, each by a different author: a historical account of surrounding military events by Christopher McManus, Constance Crawford's commentary on her father's life and writing, and the letters themselves by Ned Crawford. These writings are interwoven chronologically here to make Private Ned Crawford's story comprehensible, entertaining, and moving. The letters Ned wrote to his best friend while serving as a soldier in World War I offer an intimate, quirky, and intelligent account of what it was like for a thirty-one-year-old man who abhorred war and any official interference with individual freedom to submit to a wartime draft and to perform his part in the enormous human drama that was the American Expeditionary Force.

Full Product Details

9781564745941

Table of Contents

Reviews

Author Information

During Constance Crawford's childhood her father's non-voluntary but heroic service in World War I remained an unfinished story. She went on to study fiction writing at the Stanford Writing Program. It was not until the 1980s that she learned of the existence of thirty eloquent letters her father sent home during his service in the AEF. With this book the intimate, century-old letters are presented, supported by substantially researched history and a daughter's probing personal commentary. The author's other publications include The Muse of Menus. Constance Crawford lives in Palo Alto, CA. A self-educated man, limited in formal schooling to the sixth grade in a small-town Ohio public school, Ned Crawford managed to develop a terse, graceful, and humorous writing style. All his life he wrote letters. Getting my letters written was always on his mind, and, in many ways, doing so could be considered his central life work. During the last year of World War I, Pfc. Crawford served as a communications engineer in the American Expeditionary Force in Belgium and France. Christopher McManus is a retired mathematician and manager of medical computer systems. He researched and edited Morning to Midnight in the Saddle, a collection of Civil War letters. He lives in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available