MANUSCRIPT. – FIRST WORLD WAR. [A hand-written liber amicorum compiled by the wounded soldiers on the 17th Ward of Norfolk War Hospital, Thorpe. N.p.:] 1915-1916. 139pp., manuscript, 8vo (227 x 176mm.) 70 leaves of random jottings, rhymes, quotes and jokes, in numerous legible hands, several pencil drawings of regimental badges, some entries dedicated to Sister S. Neave of the 17th ward, nearly all dated and signed by the soldiers. (One loose leaf, a quire nearly detached, toning.) Original red roan (spine ends worn, endpapers browned). Note: there is every tone of voice here. Some of the soldiers are directly appreciative: ‘I write these few lines to thank nurse Neave for her kind attentions to me’, others are more brusque (‘God made man/ Then he made woman/ He took pity on man/ And made tobacco’) some play jokes (like the soldier who writes on an over-slip: ‘Ladies are requested not to lift this cover’), others are more desperate: ‘Nothing in my hand I bring/Simply to my cross I cling’. Several entries describe the difficulty of saying anything, and drawing the badge serves well enough, or random thoughts intrude (‘VOTES FOR WOMEN’), but one puts it eloquently: ‘I’m Sargeant Smith of 10 ward/ A soldier bold am I/ The tales I have to tell you/ Are enough to make you cry/ I’m lying in this hospital/ With a wound quite near my thigh/ And so to while the time away/ I lie, and lie, and lie’. Provenance: Sister S. Neave (gift inscribed to on initial blank).