The Day of Wrath: A Romance of the Great War

London: W. & R. Chambers, 1916 . First edition. Cloth. Very Good. 8" by 6". None. The vanishingly scarce first edition of Louis Tracy's novel about the outbreak of the First World War, detailing contemporary events in striking detail. The very scarce first edition of this work by journalist and novelist Louis Tracy.Tracy's novel details the horrors of the first year of the Great War. The book was written at the end of 1915 and the Bryce Report into German atrocities in Belgium had been issued in May 1915. Contemporary reviews were uncomfortable with such a detailed depiction of recent atrocities.At the beginning of the novel, Tracy emphasises that the events detailed are based on fact, and that the atrocities he depicts as taking place in Belgium - massacres, theft, murder and rape - really did happen to Belgian civilians in the first weeks of the war.With a former owner's address blind stamped to the front free endpaper.A fascinating and historically significant novel. In the publisher's original cloth binding. Bumping to back strip head and tail. Light fading to back strip. Small hole in cloth towards head of front joint. Internally, firmly bound. Pages bright and generally clean, with only the odd area of light spotting. Very Good