author
Eugène Emmanuel Lemercier
1886–1915
A young French painter turned soldier, he is remembered for the moving letters he sent home from the front during the First World War. His writing feels immediate and human, full of tenderness, courage, and clear-eyed honesty.
2 Audiobooks
Letters of a Soldier, 1914-1915
by Eugène Emmanuel Lemercier
Briefe eines Soldaten: Deutsche Ausgabe der Lettres d'un soldat
by Eugène Emmanuel Lemercier
About the author
Born in Paris on November 7, 1886, Eugène Emmanuel Lemercier grew up in an artistic family and studied at the École des Beaux-Arts while still very young. He trained as a painter, but his life was cut short by war before he could fully develop the career his early promise suggested.
When World War I began, he returned to military service and wrote frequently to his mother from the front. Those letters, later published as Letters of a Soldier, 1914–1915, made his name known beyond the art world. They stand out for their warmth, intelligence, and the vivid way they record the daily strain of war.
Lemercier died on April 6, 1915, during the fighting at Les Éparges, at just twenty-eight years old. Though his life was brief, his letters have endured as a deeply personal witness to the war and to the sensibility of a gifted artist facing it.