All Quiet on the Western Front: The Illustrated Edition [Hardcover]

Erich Maria Remarque (Author), A. W. Wheen (Author, Translator)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This edition of Remarque's 1929 World War I classic includes numerous period photos of German soldiers. If you're looking for a nice hardcover, try it.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German

Product Details

• Hardcover: 206 pages
• Publisher: Bulfinch Pr (September 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0821223127
• ISBN-13: 978-0821223123
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #76,848 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A classic account against war..., May 3, 2001

By 

Franz Noel Isler "britelites77" (Atlanta, GA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: All Quiet on the Western Front: The Illustrated Edition (Hardcover)

I first read this book when I was 15 years old and had the opportunity again to read it recently (the illustrated edition). Although fictional, it is a classic account of the devastation and tragedy of World War I. It changed my whole outlook about war, and it succeeds again after all these years.

Arguably the best anti-war novel of all time, it is told from the perspective of a young German soldier (Paul Baumer) who tells of his adventures with his classmates, their enlistment and experiences in the war. He describes how only in such terrible hardship and mind boggling terror can one attain real genuine comradeship. The book no doubt was excerpted from some of the war experiences of Remarque, who was drafted in 1916, wounded in 1917 and then saw no further action. Obviously appalled by the enormous loss of life and devastation, "Im Westen nichts Neues" was published in Germany in 1929--and became an instant best seller. Devoid of all romanticism, he describes in graphic and burning prose the tragedy of war where the individual could not surmount but be battered and eventually destroyed by blind and illogical hatred not of his own making. No wonder that Remarque became a 'persona non grata' in the Third Reich, for the Nazis, true sons of the war were angered by Remarque's pacifism and anti-militarism, eventually stripping him of German citizenship.

A book destined to be a classic, for sheer fascination it rivals the most thrilling modern novel, for it is readable, interesting, and easy to understand. And these are the very qualities which characterize classical books: simplicity, interest and readability.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best war novels written, December 10, 1999

By 

Crys - See all my reviews

This review is from: All Quiet on the Western Front: The Illustrated Edition (Hardcover)

The first time I read this book it was for a school assignment. Now I must have read it about a hundred times. It is an anti-war novel. Always in school, at least in American, we are always taught that the Germans are the "bad guys" and they are the ones to blame. However, this book is from a German soldier's point of view. The more I read the more I began to sympathize and the more I realized that they were in the exact same boat as our doughboys. It touches on points based on politics and humanities. This book does have a lot of action in it and it is not for the squirmish. The illustrated edition is particularly interesting because of the photographs of the soldiers. (It really got me in the mood.) Thank you for reading my review. :-)

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The most powerful book in the history of literature, July 24, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: All Quiet on the Western Front: The Illustrated Edition (Hardcover)

I've just finished reading All Quiet On The Western Front. A book has never made me cry. But as i continued reading, getting deeper and deeper into the mind and soul of the narrator, deeper into the head of Paul Baumer, i felt his pain, his despair, his desperate attempt at clinging to a past that he has lost, his innocence, his youth... I saw the war through his eyes, felt his agony, his longing for an end to a war that knows no end. And i cried for Paul Baumer, a man of 20 who entered the war as a naive, almost 17 year old boy. By the time he was 20, he's seen and experienced things that would cause some to go mad... This incredible story of what's left of life in a mad struggle between life and death, as tolld by the Paul Baumer, touched and captivated me in ways i've never imagined. Remarque has created a masterpiece, and even though the characters are supposedly fictionary, it is a fact that there were millions of young men out there, just like Paul and his comrades, real people, soldiers that have gone through the same ordeals, same fears, same horrors, that makes the characters so real. This is the remarcable story of (as Remarque describes) "A Generation That Was Destroyed By The War"