Meet Henry Fleming, a youth who dreams of glory as a Union Army soldier during the Civil War. In the middle of his first battle, Henry runs from the fighting in terror. He begins to grow up when he has to face his fellow soldiers, some of whom are wounded and dying. Now, Henry knows that war is not as glorious as he thought. An another major battle begins, will Henry flee or find the courage to stay and fight?

This classic short story of a Southern plantation owner facing execution by Union soldiers is "a flawless example of American genius" (Kurt Vonnegut). Alabama planter Peyton Farquhar was loyal to the Confederate cause. Now, as the Union Army overtakes the South, he is brought to the edge of a railroad bridge-hands tied behind his back-sentenced to hang for attempting to burn down the bridge on which he stands. As he ponders the events both large...

By turns romantic and harshly realistic, Hemingway's story of a tragic romance set against the brutality and confusion of World War I cemented his fame as a stylist and as a writer of extraordinary literary power. A volunteer ambulance driver and a beautiful English nurse fall in love when he is wounded on the Italian front. The best American novel to emerge from World War I, A Farewell to Arms is the unforgettable story of an American ambulance driver...

"'The last of the Mohicans', one of the world's great adventure stories, dramatizes how the birth of American culture was intertwined with that of Native Americans. In 1757, as the English and the French war over American territory, the frontier scout Hawkeye (Natty Bumppo) risks his life to escort two sisters through hostile Huron country. Hawkeye enlists the aid of his Mohican friends Chingachgook and Uncas, and together they battle deception,...

Paul Baumer enlisted with his classmates in the German army of World War I. Youthful, enthusiastic, they become soldiers. But despite what they have learned, they break into pieces under the first bombardment in the trenches. And as horrible war plods on year after year, Paul holds fast to a single vow: to fight against the principles of hate that meaninglessly pits young men of the same generation but different uniforms against each other--if only...

Since its publication, Richard Moe's The Last Full Measure has garnered a reputation as the definitive history of the First Minnesota Regiment and one of a handful of classic regimental histories of the Civil War.
The First Minnesota Volunteers, the first regiment offered to President Lincoln after the fall of Fort Sumter, served in virtually every major battle fought in the eastern theater during the first three years of the Civil War. This...

Edith Wharton's A Son at the Front (1923) is a stirring rumination of family, art, and the shortcomings of possession. The story, which is set on the eve of the First World War reflects the author's own experience living in France when the "Great War" broke out. The delineation of Wartime Paris is one of great power and evocation, yet it is the immensely personal father-son relationship that is at the heart of this tragic novel. The novel begins in...

Claude Wheeler, the sensitive, aspiring protagonist of this beautifully written Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, resembles the youngest son of a peculiarly American fairy tale. His fortune is ready-made for him, but he refuses to settle for it. Alienated from his parents, all but rejected by his wife, and dissatisfied with farming, Claude is an idealist without an ideal to cling to. It's only when America enters the First World War that Claude finds...

The Things They Carried depicts the men of Alpha Company. They battle the enemy (or maybe more the idea of the enemy) and occasionally each other. In their relationships we see their isolation and loneliness, their rage and fear. They miss their families, their girlfriends and buddies; they miss the lives they left back home. Yet they find sympathy and kindness for strangers (the old man who leads them unscathed through the minefield, the girl who...

The Enormous Room is a fictionalized autobiographical account of the three months that E. E. Cummings spent in a French prison under suspicion of espionage-a circumstance he could have easily avoided had he professed a hatred of Germans. Instead, when questioned, Cummings answered French authorities in a way that insured that he would accompany his friend "B." (William Slater Brown), who was indeed guilty of writing letters critical of the French...