A link I missed yesterday for Veterans Day: AbeBooks has a fascinating roundup of “trench literature,” the things that were read by everyday soldiers in World War I:

Soldiers had such an appetite for reading that both sides resorted to publishing at the front. The best known British trench magazine was The Wipers Times produced by the 12th Battalion Sherwood Foresters of the Nottingham & Derbyshire Regiment. Stationed in Ypres, Belgium, the Foresters found an abandoned printing press and put it to good use between 1916 and 1918. The Wipers Times featured poems, jokes and satire on military life.

Several books have been written about The Wipers Times, including a 1930 edition that reprinted the magazines. There is also Suffering from Cheerfulness: Poems and Parodies from the Wipers Times by Malcolm Brown. The French produced a trench magazine called Le Poilu – poilu (which translates as hairy) was a nickname for their bearded soldiers - while the German soldiers published Der Drahtverhau.

(Via Books, Inq.)