Regeneration

First edition. 8vo. Pp. [iv], 252. Grey cloth boards, lettered in red to spine. Jacket illustration by Irene von Treskow. Author's Note.

Signed by the Author and dated 11th Sep. 1995 to title page. An immaculate copy.

The first volume in Barker's WWI "Regeneration Trilogy", named as one of "The 10 best historical novels" by The Observer in 2012. Chosen as one of the best four novels of 1991 by the New York Times Book Review and listed as one of the '100 most influential novels' by the BBC in 2019 to kickstart its year-long celebration of literature. Short-listed for the 1991 Booker Prize, which she subsequently won in 1995 with the third volume, The Ghost Road.

Interweaving fact and fiction, the novel is set in a WWI British military hospital and is based on the wartime experiences of the poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, in the care of noted psychiatrist W.H.R. Rivers. Barker attributes the novel's initial inspiration to her neurologist husband, David Barker, who was familiar with Rivers's pioneering treatment of shell-shocked WWI soldiers at Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh and his research into "nerve regeneration".

Made into a 1997 film by Gillies MacKinnon, starring Jonathan Pryce, James Wilby, and Jonny Lee Miller. "A vivid evocation of the agony of the First World War and a multi-layered exploration of all wars. A fine anthem for doomed youth." –Time Out