author
Bernard Adams
1890–1917
A young British officer who turned his months in the trenches into one of the earliest published memoirs of life on the Western Front. His writing is valued for its clear, immediate picture of World War I, made even more poignant by the fact that he was killed in action before the book appeared.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born in Beckenham, Kent, on November 15, 1890, Bernard Adams was the pen name of John Bernard Pye Adams. He studied at St John's College, Cambridge, and served in the Royal Welch Fusiliers during World War I.
His best-known book, Nothing of Importance, grew out of eight months at the front with a Welsh battalion from October 1915 to June 1916. It is often noted as the first published book-length account of trench life to appear during the war itself, and readers still remember it for its calm, observant honesty.
Adams was wounded while leading an attack in France and died on February 27, 1917, at the age of 26. He did not live to see the publication of his memoir, which gives his work an unusual sense of immediacy and loss.