Sometimes I thought Truth had vanished from the earth, he cried bitterly. Like everything else, it was rationed by the governments. I taught myself to disbelieve half of what I read in the papers. I saw the world clawing itself to shreds in blind rage. I saw hardly any one brave enough to face the brutalizing absurdity as it really was, and describe it … Perhaps half a dozen of them have told the truth. Have you read Sassoon? Or Latzko’s Men in War, which was so damned true that the government suppressed it? Humph! Putting Truth on rations!

• Roger Mifflin, from The Haunted Bookshop, by Christopher Morley

Andreas Latzko was hospitalized for malaria and severe shock after serving on the warfront on the Isonzo River during the war between Austria-Hungary and Italy in 1916. While he was recuperating he poured out his anguish over what he had seen and experienced in these six harrowing chapters. The book was published in 1917 as the war still raged, and Roger Mifflin was not exaggerating when he said the government suppressed it. Never mind which government he was talking about; every one of the warring countries tried to censor it.

You’ll understand why when you read this forgotten classic of The Great War, second in the Roger Mifflin Collection of brilliant books recommended by the proprietor of The Haunted Bookshop.