Erich Maria Remarque invented the war memoir and in so doing offered us an unsettling glimpse into the hear of war.
Folio Society; 2010; xvi, 203pp; 8to (230x150x30mm); 0.7kg; bound in printed cloth; in plain brown slipcase; black and white photographs throughout.
Erich Maria Remarque knew all too well the face of war, having been conscripted into the (soon to be defeated) German Imperial Army in 1917. When he published All Quiet on the Western Front (first published in book form in 1929 as Im Westen nichts Neues), therefore, it was not to be a tale of action and adventure, but a reflection on the plight of the ordinary solider in a world where there are no heroes, only victims. Folio Society first published this novel in 1966. This is the 2010 edition, which has a more elaborate binding design.
Physical production
The volume is presented in a plain grey-brown slipcase that has a slightly coarse appearance (like the fabric of a field tunic). This lends it a crude, utilitarian austerity that makes the book look like it might have been provisioned for supply at the front. The book is bound in beige cloth (though it feels a bit like buckram), printed with a brown design of a desolate war-torn landscape (based on the photograph Bombed streets at Fort Souville, 26 July 1916). The cover carries the novel’s title in a cursive Germanic face called Diva, while the spine bears the title, author’s name, and the word FOLIO. I’ve found the printing on the cover to be a bit prone to rubbing: my copy has an unsightly scratch to the rear and rubbed corners. For this reason, I now keep it wrapped in a protective Mylar dust jacket.
The binding is sewn, with black and white head and tail bands. The printing and binding took place in Italy. End papers have a satin finish and are printed with a panoramic photograph of German soldiers during the First World War.
Inside the book
The text is set in Palatino, with the well-chosen Diva display to add a bit of thematically-relevant finesse to the typography. Occasional small printer’s ornaments add a further flourish to the design. It’s not the kind of typographic design that leaps off the page at you, but it is elegant and eminently readable. The translation by Brian Murdoch dates to 1994, while Geoff Dyer’s introduction engages sensitively with the theme of conflict and the human condition.
The book is printed on off-white, acid-free Abbey Wove paper. It is illustrated with nine black and white photographs of German soldiers (including the frontispiece, which is a photograph of Remarque himself). Each is printed on glossy photographic paper, and the reproduction is both clear and sharp.
This book is intended neither as an accusation nor as a confession, but simply as an attempt to give an account of a generation that was destroyed by the war—even those of it who survived the shelling.
Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front
This book was banned by the Nazis—usually a definite certification of quality. Indeed, while much of the novel has an element of farce, this is no comedy but a masterful polemic on the folly of conflict. Besides essentially inventing the genre of war memoir, the book became an instant publishing phenomenon and occupies a well-deserved place in the western literary canon. I found it to be a powerful and incisive condemnation of war and those on whose behest it is waged, at once both enlightening and moving. ■
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