At Low Tide of War

Forbidden for a time in several countries due to its overly explicit descriptions of the horrors of war, this book is one of the loudest anti-war statements in 20th-century literature. In September 1916, when the third year of World War I was beginning, American Ellen N. La Motte published a collection of stories about her experience as a nurse in a frontline hospital. Believing it to undermine morale, the collection was immediately banned both in England and France, and later censored in America.

The book is a unique testimony to the destruction wrought by war on the human body and spirit, profoundly shocking while not devoid of dark humor. Highly praised by Gertrude Stein and influencing the style of Ernest Hemingway, this text deserves to be among the most significant books about wars of the 20th century.