This collection of poems in French bears the words and feelings of the citizen soldiers of France during the First World War. Published with an English introduction by Robert Herrick, the book was printed and sold to benefit the New England branch of the American Fund for French Wounded.
“It is this priceless gift of a chivalrous heart that France has given to all the world. The French soldier has redeemed by his heroism, his chivalry, his devotion, the grimmest, the dirtiest, the most inhuman of all wars. [...] It is not the submarine ingenuity, the gas torture, the Zeppelin monster that mankind thinks of, remembers: it is the stand at the Marne, the long agony of Verdun, the unyielding heroism of the simple French soldier, who for three years has bled, has literally stood with his body between the life of the world and the darkness that threatened to engulf it. Therefore the poilu is immortal.” (from the Introduction; p. 12-13)
- Title: Poèmes des Poilus
- Editor: Robert Herrick
- Publisher: A. Butterfield
- Place: Boston
- Year: 1917
- Length: 57pp
- Dimensions: 5” x 8.25” x 0.5”
- Condition: Pale blue paper-covered boards with maroon spine in good condition—smudged and faded with some edgewear and a small amount of soiling. Pages clean. No folds or marginalia. Some small tears. A number of the pages have been left uncut.