Till We Meet Again

Pte. George Price of the 28th Battalion was the last British Empire soldier killed in the First World War, shot mere minutes before it ended. Price is just one of the people we meet fighting on the Western Front during author Brandon Marriott’s recreation of the story of Price’s fellow battalion member Sgt. Lester Harper in Till We Meet Again. It’s a nuanced journey from hopeful enlistee to disillusioned sergeant.

To achieve this, Marriott, a historian and a research associate at Simon Fraser University, used information from letters Harper sent to his wife, Mabel, back home in Pouce Coupe, B.C., interviews with family members, as well as detailed historical research from archives and texts. The result is a deeply human look at a world that’s often romanticized.