Martyn Lyons is Professor of History and European Studies at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. His previous publications include A History of Reading and Writing in the Western World (2010) and Reading Culture and Writing Practices in Nineteenth-Century France (2008).

'All historians, regardless of their specialization, will find enthralling material in this pioneering study of the 'common writer'. For here we find people at the bottom of the social pyramid writing their own history, as they experienced it and described it.' Jonathan Rose, William R. Kenan Professor of History, Drew University

• 1. Ordinary writings, extraordinary authors; 2. Archives for an alternative history; 3. 'Excuse my bad writing'; 4. Literary temptations; 5. France: transparency and disguise in the poilus' letters, 1914–18; 6. France: national identity from below and the discovery of the 'lost provinces', 1914–19; 7. Family, village and motherland in Italian soldiers' writing, 1915–18; 8. Italian identities 'from below' and ordinary writings from the Trentino; 9. Love, death, and writing on the Italian Front, 1915–18; 10. Spain: emergency literacy and the nostalgia of exile, 1820s–1920s; 11. Family strategy and individual identities in Spanish emigrants' letters; 12. Order and disorder in the 'memory books'; 13. Conclusions; Bibliography.

Martyn Lyons is Professor of History and European Studies at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. His previous publications include A History of Reading and Writing in the Western World (2010) and Reading Culture and Writing Practices in Nineteenth-Century France (2008).

'All historians, regardless of their specialization, will find enthralling material in this pioneering study of the 'common writer'. For here we find people at the bottom of the social pyramid writing their own history, as they experienced it and described it.' Jonathan Rose, William R. Kenan Professor of History, Drew University

• 1. Ordinary writings, extraordinary authors; 2. Archives for an alternative history; 3. 'Excuse my bad writing'; 4. Literary temptations; 5. France: transparency and disguise in the poilus' letters, 1914–18; 6. France: national identity from below and the discovery of the 'lost provinces', 1914–19; 7. Family, village and motherland in Italian soldiers' writing, 1915–18; 8. Italian identities 'from below' and ordinary writings from the Trentino; 9. Love, death, and writing on the Italian Front, 1915–18; 10. Spain: emergency literacy and the nostalgia of exile, 1820s–1920s; 11. Family strategy and individual identities in Spanish emigrants' letters; 12. Order and disorder in the 'memory books'; 13. Conclusions; Bibliography.

Martyn Lyons is Professor of History and European Studies at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. His previous publications include A History of Reading and Writing in the Western World (2010) and Reading Culture and Writing Practices in Nineteenth-Century France (2008).

'All historians, regardless of their specialization, will find enthralling material in this pioneering study of the 'common writer'. For here we find people at the bottom of the social pyramid writing their own history, as they experienced it and described it.' Jonathan Rose, William R. Kenan Professor of History, Drew University

• 1. Ordinary writings, extraordinary authors; 2. Archives for an alternative history; 3. 'Excuse my bad writing'; 4. Literary temptations; 5. France: transparency and disguise in the poilus' letters, 1914–18; 6. France: national identity from below and the discovery of the 'lost provinces', 1914–19; 7. Family, village and motherland in Italian soldiers' writing, 1915–18; 8. Italian identities 'from below' and ordinary writings from the Trentino; 9. Love, death, and writing on the Italian Front, 1915–18; 10. Spain: emergency literacy and the nostalgia of exile, 1820s–1920s; 11. Family strategy and individual identities in Spanish emigrants' letters; 12. Order and disorder in the 'memory books'; 13. Conclusions; Bibliography.