Eugène Emmanuel Lemercier

Born in Paris on November 7, 1886, he was a French artist whose life was cut short during the First World War. Although he is sometimes remembered primarily through his wartime writing, he was also a painter, and his work is held by institutions including the National Gallery of Ireland.

From August 1914 until April 1915, he wrote frequently to his mother from the front. Those letters were later published as Letters of a Soldier, 1914–1915 (originally Lettres d'un soldat), and they remain the work for which he is best known in English. They stand out for their calm, intimate voice and for the way they capture both the strain of war and the warmth of family feeling.

He died on April 6, 1915, while serving in the French army, at just 28 years old. Even with such a short life, his letters have endured as a moving first-hand record of the war and of the thoughtful, artistic mind behind them.