Donald Hankey

Donald William Alers Hankey was an English soldier and writer, born in Brighton in 1884. He is remembered above all for A Student in Arms, a pair of essay collections drawn from his experience in the British volunteer army during the First World War.

Before and during the war, he lived a varied life that included military training, study, religious work, and service among working-class boys and men. That mix of discipline, sympathy, and close observation shaped his writing, which is admired for being clear, thoughtful, and deeply interested in the everyday lives of soldiers rather than just the grand sweep of war.

Hankey was killed on the Western Front in October 1916, at only 31. Because he died so young, his reputation rests on a small body of work, but it has endured as one of the most personal and moving literary responses to the war.