A Test to Destruction

A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight #8

by Henry Williamson

The eighth volume of A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight , A Test to Destruction begins during the final year of the Great War.

After the harsh winter of 1917, everyone is almost at the end of their endurance. Hetty, temporarily relieved to have Phillip safely home, hopes desperately that her son will not be posted to France again. Phillip, however, is determined to go back, and adds his name to a list of those available for service. Returning to the Front, he is injured and sent on convalescent leave in the West Country, where he remains as the war comes to an end.

Genres: Fiction

462 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1960

About the author

Henry William Williamson was an English soldier, naturalist, farmer and ruralist writer known for his natural history and social history novels, as well as for his fascist sympathies. He won the Hawthornden Prize for literature in 1928 with his book Tarka the Otter.

Henry Williamson is best known for a tetralogy of four novels which consists of The Beautiful Years (1921), Dandelion Days (1922), The Dream of Fair Women (1924) and The Pathway (1928). These novels are collectively known as The Flax of Dream and they follow the life of Willie Maddison from boyhood to adulthood in a rapidly changing world.

Reviews

[Paul Christensen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The ‘war to end all war’ itself is ended,
And Phillip feels it with emotions blended,
Haunted by fallen comrades, bittersweet,
As he tries adapting ways to ‘civvy street’.

There are confrontations brewing left and right
As he tries to find (and trail) his guiding light.
Materialistic Mavis, slimy Ching,
And the lies of the yellow press all complicate things.

[Paul Christensen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The ‘war to end all war’ itself is ended,
And Phillip feels it with emotions blended,
Haunted by fallen comrades, bittersweet,
As he tries adapting ways to ‘civvy street’.

There are confrontations brewing left and right
As he tries to find (and trail) his guiding light.
Materialistic Mavis, slimy Ching,
And the lies of the yellow press all complicate things.

[David Green · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can't beat Henry Williamson for a real insight into life on the western front.

[PAUL DEWSON · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eighth book in Chronicles of Ancient Sunlight series and like the earlier novels this one too does not disappoint. We follow Phillip Maddison back to the Western Front and the final German offensive where he is gassed. His recovery, his award of the DSO and the difficulty he has with coming to terms with the end of the war his continuing uneasy relationship with his father are all brilliantly told by Williamson.