The backwash of war : an extraordinary American nurse in World War I / by Ellen N. La Motte ; edited with an introduction and biography by Cynthia Wachtell, editor.

Includes index.

Print version record.

Introduction -- Biography -- Chronology -- The Backwash of war : the human wreckage of the battlefield as witnessed by an American hospital nurse -- Introduction to 1916 edition -- Introduction to 1934 edition -- Heroes -- La patrie reconnaissante -- The hole in the hedge -- Alone -- A Belgian civilian -- The interval -- Women and wives -- Pour la patrie -- Locomotor ataxia -- A surgical triumph -- At the telephone -- A citation -- An incident -- Esmeralda -- War essays by Ellen N. La Motte -- An American nurse in Paris -- Under shell-fire at Dunkirk -- A joy ride -- Significant publications by Ellen La Motte -- Notes -- Index.

As World War I advanced into a third deadly year, an American woman named Ellen N. La Motte published a collection of stories about her experience as a war nurse. Deemed damaging to morale, The Backwash of War was immediately banned in both England and France and later censored in wartime America. At once deeply unsettling and darkly humorous, this compelling book presents a unique view of the destruction wrought by war to the human body and spirit. Long neglected, it is an astounding book by an extraordinary woman and merits a place among major works of WWI literature.

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