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Biography of Frederic Manning
Frederick Manning was born in Sydney, Australia, in 1882. Prevented by Asthma from attending the usual educational institutions, he was taught largely at home, and at the age of sixteen was sent to England to live with a family friend, Arthur Galton, a rural clergyman who knew Ezra Pound, Max Beerbohm and Richard Aldington. Soon Manning was writing narrative poems, essays and stories in the style of the period, and was also reviewing for the Spectator. In 1914 he joined the army, and as a soldier in the ranks ultimately fought in the terrible battles on the Somme. In 1929 he published, privately and anonymously, The Middle Parts of Fortune, his novel about military life. Because its language was thought too obscene for general circulation an expurgated edition, titled Her Privates We, was issued in 1930. Later, Manning wrote as a journalist for a time and travelled in search of better health. He died in London in 1935 and it was only in 1943 that his name appeared on the title page of his book.
HER PRIVATES WE
THE MIDDLE PARTS OF FORTUNE
Frederic Manning
These are two titles for what is essentially the same book. Frederic Manning, who was born in Sydney, Australia, came to Britain and joined the army as a private in the King's Shropshire Light Infantry, serving on the Somme and in Flanders. After the war, he wrote his novel "The Middle Parts of Fortune" and released it in 1929 in a private edition limited to 520 copies. A year later, the book was published in an expurgated version (minus some of the real soldiers' bad language) under the title "The Middle Parts of Fortune" by "Private 19022." Manning's name did not appear on the cover of his book until 1943, eight years after his death. It was not until 1977 that Manning's original text, under its original title, "The Middle Parts of Fortune" was published.
"It is the finest and noblest book of men in war that I have ever read." - Ernest Hemingway.
"No praise can be too sheer for this book - it justifies every heat of praise." - T. E. Lawrence. ..
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