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The First World War in the 1920s (2024)
Book Chapter
Frayn, A. The First World War in the 1920s. In The 1920s: A Decade of Modern British Fiction. Bloomsbury Publishing

A survey of First World War literature in the 1920s.

The First World War and Ford Madox Ford’s Short Stories, 1914–1920 (2024)
Journal Article
Frayn, A. (2024). The First World War and Ford Madox Ford’s Short Stories, 1914–1920. Humanities, 13(3), Article 86. https://doi.org/10.3390/h13030086

This article analyses together, for the first time, Ford Madox Ford’s short stories about the First World War. A surprisingly unfamiliar form for Ford, who valued allusion, subtlety, and omission as narrative devices, we see in these stories his firs... Read More about The First World War and Ford Madox Ford’s Short Stories, 1914–1920.

"Proved Dead . . . Proved Dead . . .”: Ellipsis, elision and expurgation in interwar First World War prose (2024)
Book Chapter
Frayn, A. "Proved Dead . . . Proved Dead . . .”: Ellipsis, elision and expurgation in interwar First World War prose. In A History of Punctuation in English Literature. Cambridge University Press

This chapter addresses the use of various forms of typographical ellipsis. In it I argue that ellipses represent failures of communication which are characteristic of early-twentieth-century writing, pointing to limit experiences which could be desc... Read More about "Proved Dead . . . Proved Dead . . .”: Ellipsis, elision and expurgation in interwar First World War prose.

‘On the perimeter and fringe of war’: Norman Nicholson, Rural Modernity and Wartime (2024)
Journal Article
Frayn, A. (in press). ‘On the perimeter and fringe of war’: Norman Nicholson, Rural Modernity and Wartime. Modernist Cultures,

The author Norman Nicholson is an exemplary writer of rural modernity, acutely conscious of the need for rural areas to remain ‘living and organic communities’, as he puts it in his topographic book Greater Lakeland (1969). Here, I argue that his po... Read More about ‘On the perimeter and fringe of war’: Norman Nicholson, Rural Modernity and Wartime.

Dot, dot, dot: Anon., WAAC: The Woman’s Story of the War (1930) (2023)
Digital Artefact
Frayn, A. (2023). Dot, dot, dot: Anon., WAAC: The Woman’s Story of the War (1930). [Podcast]

One of many books about the First World War on the censor’s blacklist, this one claims to offer a new, fresh perspective about the British army. But how much truth can a memoir written by ‘anonymous’ tell? With Dr Andrew Frayn.

Rural modernity, rural modernism and deindustrialisation in Norman Nicholson’s poetry (2023)
Journal Article
Frayn, A. (2023). Rural modernity, rural modernism and deindustrialisation in Norman Nicholson’s poetry. English Studies, 104(3), 478-499. https://doi.org/10.1080/0013838X.2023.2180593

This article argues that the Cumbrian poet Norman Nicholson (1914–1987) is an exemplary writer about rural modernity, whose work also enables us to conceptualise a rural modernism. Nicholson lived all his life in his home town of Millom, an industria... Read More about Rural modernity, rural modernism and deindustrialisation in Norman Nicholson’s poetry.

The War Books Boom in Britain, 1928–1930 (2022)
Journal Article
Frayn, A., & Houston, F. (2022). The War Books Boom in Britain, 1928–1930. First World War Studies, 13(1), 25-45. https://doi.org/10.1080/19475020.2022.2129718

Based on a dataset of unparalleled extent containing nearly 1500 books, this article for the first time offers an analysis of the War Books Boom that combines the qualitative and quantitative. The Boom did not simply rise and fall; an early peak in p... Read More about The War Books Boom in Britain, 1928–1930.

'On the perimeter and fringe of war': Norman Nicholson, rural modernity and wartime (2022)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Frayn, A. (2022, October). 'On the perimeter and fringe of war': Norman Nicholson, rural modernity and wartime. Paper presented at Gardens in the Gorse: Rural Britain’s Modernist Cultures (Northern Modernism Seminar), Newcastle

The author Norman Nicholson is an exemplary writer of rural modernity, acutely conscious of the need for remote areas to remain ‘living and organic communit[ies]’ (Greater Lakeland) because of his proximity, in his lifetime home of Millom, in the ind... Read More about 'On the perimeter and fringe of war': Norman Nicholson, rural modernity and wartime.

Raymond Williams, Norman Nicholson, and rural modernity (2022)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Frayn, A. (2022, April). Raymond Williams, Norman Nicholson, and rural modernity. Paper presented at Raymond Williams @ 100: A Centenary Conference, Manchester

This paper reads the Cumbrian poet Norman Nicholson’s writings about the impact of deindustrialisation on rural communities through the lens of Raymond Williams’s theorisation of the rural in modernity – notably The Country and the City, but also tak... Read More about Raymond Williams, Norman Nicholson, and rural modernity.

British War Writing, 1900–1920: Empire, Mass Warfare and Mass Culture (2021)
Book Chapter
Frayn, A. (2021). British War Writing, 1900–1920: Empire, Mass Warfare and Mass Culture. In J. Purdon (Ed.), British Literature in Transition, 1900–1920: A New Age? (106-121). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108648714.007

Representations of conflict in the early twentieth century respond both to the impact of mass industrial warfare, particularly in the First World War, and the development of mass culture following the Education Acts of the late nineteenth century. Co... Read More about British War Writing, 1900–1920: Empire, Mass Warfare and Mass Culture.

Rethinking First World War literature: The War Books Boom, 1928-30 (2021)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Frayn, A. (2021, November). Rethinking First World War literature: The War Books Boom, 1928-30. Presented at Northumbria University Institute of Humanities Seminar Series, Northumbria University

Research talk (50 min) at Northumbria University Institute of Humanities Seminar Series (online).

The UK War Books Boom, 1926-33 (2021)
Data
Frayn, A., & Houston, F. (2021). The UK War Books Boom, 1926-33. [Dataset]. https://doi.org/10.17869/enu.2021.2810868

Data for article 'The War Books Boom in Britain, 1928–1930'. For submission to First World War Studies, Oct 2021. Data collected Jan 2020-Aug 2021 from various sources articulated in article.

Ford Madox Ford, Parade’s End (tetralogy, 1924–1928) (2021)
Book Chapter
Frayn, A. (2021). Ford Madox Ford, Parade’s End (tetralogy, 1924–1928). In R. Schneider, & J. Potter (Eds.), Handbook of British Literature and Culture of the First World War (253-266). De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110422467-015

A key figure in the modernist network, Ford published new writers as the editor of two important journals, The English Review (1908–1910) and the transatlantic review (1924) (Wulfman 2009; Gasiorek 2012). Older than the modernist “jeunes,” who both a... Read More about Ford Madox Ford, Parade’s End (tetralogy, 1924–1928).

Richard Aldington, Images of War (1919) and Death of a Hero (1929) (2021)
Book Chapter
Frayn, A. (2021). Richard Aldington, Images of War (1919) and Death of a Hero (1929). In R. Schneider, & J. Potter (Eds.), Handbook of British Literature and Culture of the First World War (183-195). De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110422467-009

Richard Aldington is a distinctive and underrated writer. His Imagist poetry and his coruscating First World War novel Death of a Hero (1929) have continued to receive scholarly attention, but from the first assessments he has tended to be diminished... Read More about Richard Aldington, Images of War (1919) and Death of a Hero (1929).

From Blackstar to Berlin: David Bowie and the manifestation of late style in the Berlin Trilogy (2021)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Frayn, A. (2021, July). From Blackstar to Berlin: David Bowie and the manifestation of late style in the Berlin Trilogy. Paper presented at Beyond the Avant-Garde? Rethinking the Vanguard in British Music since 1970, Goldsmiths and the University of Manchester (online)

David Bowie’s Blackstar (2016) has been written about extensively as a final album, and conceptualised in terms of Theodor W. Adorno and Edward W. Said’s work on late style (e.g. Frayn and Durkin, 2017; McMullan, 2018; Schott, 2020; Graham, 2021). Th... Read More about From Blackstar to Berlin: David Bowie and the manifestation of late style in the Berlin Trilogy.

'Odd how the War changes us': May Sinclair, domesticity and war (2021)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Frayn, A. (2021, June). 'Odd how the War changes us': May Sinclair, domesticity and war. Paper presented at Networking May Sinclair, University of Nantes (online)

This paper sees the post-war novels of the novelist, philosopher and poet May Sinclair (1863-1946) as negotiating between Victorian and modern values and literary forms: the First World War gives existing issues a focus during and after it. A suffra... Read More about 'Odd how the War changes us': May Sinclair, domesticity and war.