All Quiet on the Western Front
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  • Published: 15 September 2005
  • ISBN: 9780099496946
  • Imprint: Vintage Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 240
  • RRP: $37.00

All Quiet on the Western Front

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Paperback
1 Dec 1995
Hardback
16 Jul 2024
Hardback
3 Dec 2018
EBook
1 Dec 2010
Audiobook
17 Jul 2014
Paperback
15 Sep 2005
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One of 15 limited edition Vintage Future Classics published to celebrate Vintage's 15th birthday. The 15 titles were voted for by reading groups all over the UK as being books that would still be read in 100 years time.

All Quiet on the Western Front is probably the most famous anti-war novel ever written. The story is told by a young 'unknown soldier' in the trenches of Flanders during the First World War. Through his eyes we see all the realities of war; under fire, on patrol, waiting in the trenches, at home on leave, and in hospitals and dressing stations. Although there are vividly described incidents which remain in mind, there is no sense of adventure here, only the feeling of youth betrayed and a deceptively simple indictment of war - of any war - told for a whole generation of victims.
  • Published: 15 September 2005
  • ISBN: 9780099496946
  • Imprint: Vintage Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 240
  • RRP: $37.00
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About the author

Erich Maria Remarque

Erich Maria Remarque was a German author and veteran of the First World War. He was born 1898 in Osnabrück, Germany. At the age of 18 he was conscripted into the German army. During his service he was wounded by shrapnel in the left leg, right arm and neck. Following the war he worked as a primary school teacher, and later as a librarian, a journalist and a technical writer.
Among Remarque’s published novels were All Quiet on the Western Front, The Road Back, Three Comrades and Arch of Triumph. His works were publicly burned by the Nazi German government, and in 1947 he and his first wife became naturalised citizens of the United States. Four years earlier, his sister had been executed at the behest of Hitler’s ‘People’s Court’.

Remarque adapted the book Ten Days to Die, about Hitler’s final days, as a screenplay, and he also wrote for the stage. His last novel was The Night in Lisbon, published in 1962. During his lifetime Remarque married twice and had love affairs with the actresses Hedy Lamarr, Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo.

Also by Erich Maria Remarque

The Way Back
The Promised Land
Spark of Life
Flotsam
The Night in Lisbon
Shadows in Paradise
See all

Praise for All Quiet on the Western Front

Remarque's evocation of the horrors of modern warfare has lost none of its force

The Times

Remarque is a craftsman of unquestionably first rank

New York Times Book Review

There are some books that should be read by every generation... Remarque's story of German trench soldiers of the 1914-18 war gains even more authority in the context of the loss of life in wars that still rage

Chris Searle

Brian Murdoch's new English translation shows that Remarque's evocation of the horrors of modern warfare has lost none of its force

The Times

The book conquers without persuading, it shakes you without exaggerating, a perfect work of art and at the same time truth that cannot by doubted

Stefan Zweig

This harrowing narrative is unexpectedly beautiful, more pensive than angry

Eileen Battersby, Irish Times

Its extraordinary appeal may stem from Remarque’s success in universalising the soldiers’ experience — that the war was the same for all who fought

Daily Telegraph

The power to move people by words, to arouse their sensibilities as well as their minds, was Erich Maria Remarque's to an extraordinary degree

New York Times

[A] masterpiece… For the first time a writer gave a raw, pitiless account of men killing each other, by any means possible… its unrelenting honesty makes it hard to read it as anything else

Economist

'Brian Murdoch's new English translation...shows that Remarque's evocation of the horrors of modern warfare has lost none of its force'

The Times

'There are some books that should be read by every generation. The latest translation and republication of Remarque's story of German trench soldiers of the 1914-18 war gains even more authority in the context of the loss of life in wars that still rage from Bosnia to Kashmir' Chris Searle

'The book conquers without persuading, it shakes you without exaggerating, a perfect work of art and at the same time truth that cannot be doubted' Stefan Sweig