author
Arthur Guy Empey
1883–1963
Best known for turning his own World War I service into the hugely popular memoir Over the Top, he built a colorful career that also reached into film and public speaking. His writing brought trench warfare to a wide American audience in vivid, first-hand style.
2 Audiobooks
"Over the Top," by an American Soldier Who Went Together with Tommy's Dictionary of the Trenches
by Arthur Guy Empey
Tales from a Dugout
by Arthur Guy Empey
About the author
Born in Ogden, Utah, in 1883, Arthur Guy Empey was an American soldier, writer, actor, and filmmaker. Before the First World War, he served in the U.S. Army, and in 1915 he joined the British Army, where he was wounded while serving on the Western Front.
After returning home, he wrote Over the Top, a fast-paced account of trench warfare that became a major bestseller and helped shape how many American readers imagined the war. He later adapted that success into work in motion pictures, acting in and directing films connected with his wartime experiences.
Empey remained known as a vivid popularizer of military life rather than a quiet literary figure. He died in 1963, leaving behind a body of work closely tied to the drama, hardship, and spectacle of World War I.