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  • Published: 3 March 2003
  • ISBN: 9780143001553
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 224
  • RRP: $29.00

Generals Die In Bed



Drawing on his experiences in the First World War, Charles Yale Harrison tells a stark and poignant story of a young man sent to fight on the Western Front. It is an unimaginably harrowing journey, especially for one not yet old enough to vote. In sparse but gripping prose, Harrison conveys a sense of the horrors of life in the trenches. Here is where soldiers fight and die, entombed in mud, surrounded by rats and lice, forced to survive on insufficient rations. Generals die in bed brings to life a period of history through the eyes of a twenty-year-old narrator, who reminds us that there is neither glamour nor glory in war.

  • Published: 3 March 2003
  • ISBN: 9780143001553
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 224
  • RRP: $29.00

About the authors

Charles Yale Harrison Harrison

Charles Yale Harrison was born in Philadelphia in 1898 but later moved to Montreal with his family. At the age of sixteen he took a job with the Montreal Star, but shortly afterwards he enlisted with the Royal Montreal Regiment and fought as a machine-gunner in France and Belgium during the First World War. He was wounded in 1918 during the Battle of Amiens and returned to Montreal, where he married and had a son. Harrison died in 1954, survived by his third wife.

Charles Yale Harrison

Charles Yale Harrison was born in 1898 in Philadelphia. He moved to Montreal as a child and began writing for the Montreal Star at the age of sixteen. In 1916 he joined the Royal Montreal regiment and fought as a machine-gunner in France and Belgium. He may have fought at Flers-Courcelette, and most certainly fought at Vimy Ridge and Passchendaele. He was wounded at Amiens in 1918 and returned to Montreal. He later moved to New York City where he died in 1954.