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Newspaper Pictorials: World War I Rotogravures: 1913-1919
Arts & Humanities

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A French officer and his British ally at the front read the New York Times. Excerpt from The New York Times, May 23, 1915

[Detail] A French officer and his British ally at the front read the New York Times.

Illustrating Themes in Literature About World War I

Many novels were written about World War I, including Henri Barbusse’s Under Fire (1916), John Dos Passos’s Three Soldiers (1921), Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front (1929), and Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell To Arms (1929). The war also spawned poetry, including Siegfried Sassoon’s antiwar poetry and Wilfred Owen’s realistic descriptions of trench warfare. Two noted poems about the war were “In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae and Alan Seeger’s “Rendezvous.”

Read a novel or poem about World War I. Identify the author’s theme, the main idea he/she is attempting to convey. Search the Newspaper Pictorials collection for rotogravures to illustrate scenes from the novel or poem. Select illustrations that also support the author’s theme. Use the photographs you have selected to design a book cover that reflects experiences described in passages from the novel or poem.