1918. 8vo, pp. ix, [i], 239, [3]; some minor foxing throughout, with small stain affecting lower margins of final few leaves (more prominent along tail edge than on leaves themselves); small mounted image of young boy on half-title; in the original red publisher’s cloth, spine lettered in black, spine darkened and rubbed, title in blind on upper cover, extremities sunned and lightly soiled. First edition of this autobiographical account of life as a volunteer during W.W.I, by the Canadian novellist Marjorie Grant Cook (1882-1965). Born in Quebec City, Canada, her early career was spent as a schoolteacher, before travelling to Europe in 1916 hoping to help the war effort, spending time in London before arriving in Paris. This, her first published work, documents her time working as a volunteer at a canteen for war refuges and soldiers in the Latin Quarter, as well as spending time with the Alliances des Dames Françaises helping at a hospital. Written in a diary-entry format, the work describes her experiences during the Verdun battle, the longest and bloodiest of the war, though she uses fictitious names for the people she had encountered.
Initially publishing under the name Marorie Grant, she subsequently published under her full name of Grant Cook. After the war, she returned to London and soon published her successful novel, Latchkey Ladies (1921) drawn from her life in London as a single working woman. She was a prolific and influential reviewer for the Times Literary Supplement, and went on to publish seven novels under a variety of pseudonyms.