Gilbert Frankau

Gilbert Frankau was an English poet, novelist, and wartime writer whose work drew on military experience. Alfred A. Knopf issued The Other Side, and Other Poems in 1918; The Other Side is its shortened title. This New York volume belongs to the verse Frankau wrote during and after the First World War, when he had served in the Royal Field Artillery and later worked in intelligence. Its poems approach conflict through soldiers, weapons, command, separation, and the view of war held by those away from the front. The volume appeared after his verse novel One of Us and alongside other writing that made artillery language and service life part of his poetic vocabulary. Frankau subsequently became a prolific novelist, producing works such as Peter Jackson, Cigar Merchant and Masterson. His daughter Pamela Frankau also became a novelist. The fuller title distinguishes The Other Side as a war poetry collection from several unrelated novels carrying the same words.