The Return of the Soldier is the first novel written by British author Rebecca West.  Published in 1918, it was also the first novel about the repercussions of the war for returning soldiers and the first and only novel written by a woman about the war during the war. The returning soldier is Chris Baldry, an upper class English gentleman who returns from the trenches suffering from shell shock and memory loss. He is stuck at age 20, has lost his memory of the ensuing fifteen years, which encompass his marriage and the loss of his son, and is fixated on a woman with whom he had once had a summer fling. The story is told from the somewhat limited and unreliable perspective of his cousin Jenny in a non-linear, modernist style. A sense of displacement and uncertainty is pervasive, as is the influence of memory and sexual desire.  The reappearance of Margaret, the summer lover, along with the efforts of a psychoanalyst and key artifacts of the past lead to Baldry’s eventual recovery. The Return of the Soldier was neglected in Rebecca West’s extensive oeuvre but has become acknowledged as a masterpiece that treats a difficult and elusive subject realistically and without undue sentimentality.  It was made into a film by the same name in 1982 starring Alan Bates as Chris Baldry and co-starring Julie Christie, Ian Holm, Glenda Jackson and Ann-Margret.