Hutchinson has acquired a new anthology of life-writing from and about the First World War, edited by Sebastian Faulks and Dr Hope Wolf, to mark next year's centenary.

The world rights deal was struck with Gillon Aitken at Aitken Alexander and Andrew Gordon at David Higham Associates.



Faulks said: "Much of the most exciting and illuminating writing on the First World War is found in private, unpublished documents . . . The centenary is the right time to shake up our received ideas of those four years. This anthology hopes to give a hearing to little-known voices and to guide the reader through them to a deeper understanding."



Upon A Broken World: Writing and Remembering the Great War will include excerpts from diaries, letters and other autobiographical records of the First World War. In addition to material about the trenches and No Man’s Land, the anthology will feature writing about less familiar environments such as deserts and seascapes, as well as civic spaces and institutions.



Faulks is a member of the government advisory group on the First World War centenary commemoration. His novels include the bestselling Birdsong, which is set in France during the war. Dr Hope Wolf is the Rosamund Chambers Research Fellow in English at Girton College.



Hutchinson will publish Upon A Broken World in hardback in July 2014 to coincide with the 100-year anniversary of the beginning of hostilities in 1914.

